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Irish song and the idea of tradition

Defining ‘tradition’ as something passed on within a community that provides a matrix for its understanding of past events and present choices, this essay discusses the evolution of Irish poetry and song since 1200. It explores the connections between vernacular poetry and various learned (literary) traditions, including bardic poetry (syllabic verse) and the later ‘poetic courts’ and ‘schools of poetry’, in terms of themes, verse structure, social context, and sung performance. It demonstrates that while some practices were bound to specific social contexts, the strand that most people today identify as ‘the Irish song tradition’ still employs centuries-old themes including panegyric and the Anglo-Norman ‘courtly love’ rhetoric, and displays prosodic features evidenced in Middle Irish bardic sources. Finally, we consider the emergence of ‘tradition’ as a concept, the impact since 1850 of song collecting and technology on repertoire and performance, and the implications of ‘authenticity’ for today’s definition of ‘tradition’.