The Ivory tower and the commons: exploring the institutionalisation of Irish traditional music in Irish higher education (discourse, pedagogy and practice)

This dissertation explores the institutionalisation of Irish traditional music pedagogy\nin Irish higher education. In particular, this research examines how Irish traditional\nmusic is located in academic institutions, and how this relates to the practices and\nprocesses of the wider Irish traditional music community. Informed by elements of\nsocial-science-inflected ethnographic practices (particularly interviews), this study, for\nthe first time offers a diverse and extensive range of community commentary on thirdlevel\nIrish traditional music pedagogy to the academic record. This dissertation also\nexamines public discourse that has facilitated intra-communal debate on the\ninstitutionalisation of Irish traditional music in Irish higher education. Throughout the\ndissertation, I use the term ‘discourse’ to describe “ways of speaking about the world of\nsocial experience” that “is a means of both producing and organising meaning within a\nsocial context” (Edgar and Sedgwick 2008, p.96).\nIn addition, this research provides an overview of the historical development of\nIrish traditional music studies in Irish higher education, as well as presenting a\ncontemporary overview of the Irish traditional music studies offered in nine higher\neducation institutes in the Republic of Ireland. Also, this thesis examines the existence\nof discourse and research in extra-academic contexts such as Irish traditional music\nevents, with a view to assessing the extent to which practitioners and other\nstakeholders in the Irish traditional music community engage with discourse,\nintellectualisation, and analysis of Irish traditional music.\nThree chapters of this dissertation deal specifically with three prominent\nthemes that have emerged from a combination of international scholarship on the educational institutionalisation of Western classical music, jazz, and folk and\ntraditional music, and the large-scale fieldwork interviews conducted specifically for\nthis research.1 First, I explore the concept of canonicity in music education, and\nexplore how the selection and prioritisation of elements of a musical culture such as\nrepertoire, style, and aesthetics, for example, impacts the diversity of third-level Irish\ntraditional music pedagogy in Ireland. Second, I examine the ways in which folk and\ntraditional music pedagogues draw on, adapt, or depart from Western art music\neducational models, to better understand how third-level Irish traditional music\npedagogues negotiate the historical predominance of the Western classical tradition\nwhen designing pedagogies for Irish traditional music. For example, to what extent do\npedagogues design music theory systems based on idiomatic musical characteristics of\nIrish traditional music? Third, I investigate how higher education institutes offering studies in Irish traditional music negotiate community expectations and needs in\nrelation to balancing what are perceived as authentic and traditional interpretations of\nIrish traditional music, with artistic exploration and experimentation.\nNotwithstanding the cultural and geographical specificity of this work, my research\nfindings are expected to contribute to wider, international conversations that are happening on how best to locate folk and traditional musics in higher education\nenvironments. This dissertation does not provide a critical ethnography of all or any of\nthe institutions engaged in the research. What it does do is provide an overview of\nhistories, activities, practices and discourses in order to provide context for the\ninstitutionalisation of Irish traditional music within and beyond Ireland.

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