- Emily Power
- From Ireland
My name is Emily Power and I grew up in Kinseley which is a suburb of Swords, County Dublin and I’ve been living in Kinseley all my life. When I think back to my childhood I mostly remember hearing traditional Irish music in school. A lot of, we did Irish dancing in school so that’s where I’d probably hear the most.
I would also hear it sometimes not all the time at family gatherings if some of my extended family members would be very much into that sort of thing and I think it is also ingrained in Irish culture to you know, take out a few you know, traditional Irish music towards the end of the night and sing so that was another instance of that.
I was at a funeral of a close family friend he was very much interested and grew up in the setting of traditional Irish music and Irish traditions in general, and toward the end of the night a lot of his friends that includes my dad sang sort of Irish traditional ballads in sort of memory and honour of him. That was a nice way to honour him and his memory so that is definitely a memory for me that sticks out in terms of traditional music.
I’m 25 years old and I feel like there is a new sort of Irish revival that people my age because so many people are emigrating so many people I know are leaving the country so I feel like even some of my friends that have moved away have really tapped into their Irish roots and that is through Irish traditional music as well and I suppose how I feel when I hear it it is just this new instilled pride I suppose. I feel like there has been such a shift in people my age responding to Irish music because there is this sort of disconnect as in we all want to stay here and we all want to live our lives here but it’s becoming a real possibility and a real reality for a lot of people my age that it’s just not sustainable and it can’t happen so one way to reconnect with our nationality I suppose is through Irish traditional music. When you look at you know the wolf towns being so popular at Electric Picnic I think that is a great example of how the Irish revival traditional music revival is kind of happening and it’s a nice way for intergenerational you know commonalities to be explored as well because my mom and my dad and my stepdad would have all grown up with that music and my generation would have been a bit disconnected from that so it’s a way for us to come back together in that sense.
When you’re looking at Irish pride one of the first port of calls is to look at the Irish traditional music and the subject matter that arises within it. As I’ve said before it’s a way for Irish people to tap into their own roots and for people that are not Irish I feel like it’s a very good way to it’s sort of a history lesson in some senses with some songs so I think it’s a great way to learn the history of Ireland if you’re not familiar and I feel like a lot of other nationalities can relate to the struggles of Irish people so I feel like there is a commonality there with a lot of different nations and people visiting Ireland I feel like there’s a lot of common ground so I think it’s a way to bring people together as well, that’s what I think that music means.
