Lullabies and Battle Cries

Music, Identity, and Emotion among Republican Parading Bands in Northern Ireland

Jaime Rollins

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781785339226
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medios de comunicación y artes escénicas
• Subtopic: Etnomusicología

Set against a volatile political landscape, Irish republican culture has struggled to maintain continuity with the past, affirm legitimacy in the present, and generate a sense of community for the future. Lullabies and Battle Cries explores the relationship between music, emotion, memory, and identity in republican parading bands, with a focus on how this music continues to be utilized in a post-conflict climate. As author Jaime Rollins shows, rebel parade music provides a foundational idiom of national and republican expression, acting as a critical medium for shaping new political identities within continually shifting dynamics of republican culture.

Chapter 1

Theoretical Overview

The spectrum of issues raised in this research draws on the highly debated topics of identity, memory, emotion, ritual and commemoration. This chapter summarizes the theoretical background of these topics to contextualize these issues, which will be further analysed and discussed within each chapter. Beginning with a brief summary of the anthropological study that has taken place on the island of Ireland, this chapter then outlines each of the fundamental theories that form the key issues in this book. By situating these topics within the frame of Northern Ireland’s cultural and historical background, greater insight into the layered complexities of Northern Ireland’s everyday issues is revealed and examined.

Ireland and ‘the North’: An Anthropological Overview

Historically, Ireland has been a rich source for anthropological enquiry. In their book, The Anthropology of Ireland, Wilson and Donnan comment that it might be more appropriate to think not of the anthropology of Ireland, but of anthropologies of Irelands due to the complex nature of Irish society (2006: xiv). Anthropological research on Ireland began in the 1890s with Haddon and Browne (Curtin, Donnan and Wilson 1993: 4; Wilson and Donnan 2006: 17), but it was the studies of Arensberg (1937) and Arensberg and Kimball (1968 [1940]) that were largely influential in early anthropological research. Ireland became a useful site in which:

kinship and social structure were examined as a means of testing the theoretical model of structural-functionalism and its usefulness in combining the ethnographic interests of American and British scholars. (Wilson and Donnan 2006: 17)

But while ethnographic studies in the Republic of Ireland tended to focus on rural communities and customs until the 1980s, in Northern Ireland, interest centred on the resurgence of conflict after the start of the Troubles in 1969. Studies such as Harris’ Prejudice and Tolerance in Ulster attempted to illustrate the ‘vast amount of tolerance and good will’ (1972: xiv) as well as the growing sources of conflict within Northern Irish society.¹ In Harris’ experience, it became vital to know the background of other people before engaging in conversation, in order to maintain tolerance and defuse tension. She writes:

[S]o important is it … to be able to determine the allegiances of strangers that many Ulster people seem to have developed an extreme sensitivity to signs other than explicit badges that denote the affiliations of those that they meet. Each looks automatically for slight indications from another’s name, physical appearance, expression and manner, style of dress and speech idiom to provide the clues that will enable the correct categorization to be made. (Harris 1986 [1972]: 148)

Burton (1978) explained that people negotiated community boundaries based on the ethnopolitical religious classifications of ‘Catholic’ or ‘nationalist/republican’ and ‘Protestant’ or ‘unionist/loyalist’. He coined the term ‘telling’ to describe the ways in which people used subtle clues to determine where other members of society belonged (Burton 1978: 37).

As the Troubles worsened, ethnographic study in Northern Ireland became risky, both in terms of personal danger and in terms of seeking ethnographic objectivity (see, for example, Burton 1978; Feldman 1991; Finlay 1999; Sluka 1989). Furthermore, as Wilson and Donnan pointed out:

In the anthropology of Northern Ireland it was, and remains, impossible to understand local rural and urban communities without understanding ethnicity, sectarianism, national identities, class and the overall importance of history in everyday life. (2006: 27–28)

As the diversity of methodological study in Ireland increased, so did the variety of subject matter, particularly in the troubled North. More ‘traditional’ anthropological interests such as ritual and religion, marriage and kinship exist alongside more contemporary topics such as national and ethnic identities, public policy, violence and conflict resolution. Many of these topics overlap into other arenas. Some studies on religion and ritual have political overtones (see Edwards 2004; McFarlane 1989, 1994; Mitchel 2003; Mitchell 2006), while some concentrate more on faith and belief (Ganiel 2003; Jordan 2001; Murphy 2000, 2002).

Studies into the markers of identity have primarily focused on national or ethnic identity (Crozier 1989; Donnan 2005; Kelleher 2003); social identity (Buckley and Kenney 1995; Jenkins 1982, 1983; Larsen 1982a; Nic Craith 2002, 2003); religious identity (Templer, Mitchell and Ganiel 2009); gender identity (Aretxaga 1997, 2001; Radford 2001; Sales 1997); identity through music and dance (Coghlan 2011; Ramsey 2009; Vallely 2008; Wulff 2003, 2007b); and identity and language (Andrews 1997; O’Reilly 1999; Pritchard 2004), to highlight just a few. Research into the construction and maintenance of border identities has been useful in identifying elements that provide inhabitants with a sense of history and place (Donnan and Wilson 1999; Robb 1995; Wilson 1993).

As a ‘divided society’ struggling with ethnonational segregation, sectarianism and violence (Shirlow and Murtagh 2006), Northern Ireland has posed intriguing questions to the anthropology of shared space, public policy, tourism and conflict resolution. Murtagh (2002), Nagle (2005, 2009) and Neill (1999) have dealt with questions of shared space, territory, multiculturalism and a ‘right to the city’ (Nagle 2009). Cultural ‘traditions’ such as parading that have been considered antagonistic have undergone – and in some cases, are still undergoing – processes of attenuation and mediation. Anthropological research into parades, protests and riots has helped shaped public policy, thereby mitigating aggravation caused by these practices (see Bryan 1999; Bryan and Jarman 1997; Donnan and McFarlane 1989, 1997a, 1997b; Jarman and Bryan 1996, 1998, 2000b; Jarman et al. 1998). Others have analysed the effects of mural painting on public space and concepts of territory (Jarman 1997, 1998; Kenney 1998; Rolston 1991), as well as public memorials and commemorative display (Viggiani 2014).

Research into political rituals and parades has revealed much about the changing nature of traditions (Bryan 1998, 2000b) and has reached some interesting conclusions about the way tradition is not only conceived of and practised, but how it can be used to assert identity, power and status (Bell 1990; Cecil 1993). As this book will show, parading practices (particularly for the republican community) are about the commemoration of events and people, the prioritizing of political aims and objectives, and about maintaining memory and historical narrative through music.² More recently, interest has turned towards the music played by the bands as they march, the political and social messages that songs can convey and the way that music is used as a symbol for cultural meaning and practice (Boyle 2002; Ramsey 2009; Rollins 2006, Millar 2017). Closer examination of rebel lyrics will reveal expressions of republican experiences and emotions, which will enable us to better understand the embodiment of republican identity and the narrative of republican history.

As De Rosa has noted, performances (such as parades) ‘do not only communicate previous cultural messages, but they can manipulate everyday interactions’ (1998: 100). Parades and similar commemorative events are not ritualistic in a sacred sense, but in a political, secular sense. We are thus urged to question, writes De Rosa, how these performances ‘appear to reinforce the cohesiveness of an ethnic group or a nation, while embracing a plurality of political positions and claims’ (1998: 100; see also Tonkin and Bryan 1996). Bryan and Jarman, who have done extensive research on parading in the North, have often focused on aspects of parading as political ritual (Bryan 2000b; Bryan, Fraser and Dunn 1995; Jarman 1997, 1999a; Jarman et al. 1998). Further research on parading has questioned parading rights (Bryan 2000a; Jarman and Bryan 1996); the nature of policing and monitoring parades (Bryan and Jarman 1999; Bryett 1997; Jarman 1999b; Jarman and Bryan 2000b); and parading and gender (Radford 2001, 2004; Ramsey 2009).

Northern Ireland has become a rich and diverse place of investigation and analysis, but despite the diversity of topics explored, there remains a gap in the study of republican parading bands and the communities that support them.

Identity: Manifestation and Expression

A recurrent theme throughout the variety of research done in Northern Ireland is the concept and expression of identity or identities. Like Kondo (1990), this research is formed on the understanding that identity is fluid and that it is a process of filtering and negotiating relations of shifting power; it is founded on historically dependent self-realization and is often reliant on context and attended by tension and contradiction. Jenkins has described identity as:

our understanding of who we are and of who other people are, and, reciprocally, other people’s understanding of themselves and of others (which includes us). The outcome of agreement and disagreement, at least in principle always negotiable, identity is not fixed. (2004: 5)

His definition accentuates the process of negotiation between similarity and difference, and he has pointed out that while some theorists have privileged either similarity or difference,³ the cultivation of identity necessarily includes both (2004: 5–6). Thinking of identity in this manner not only fosters a more complex model, but it allows for the formation of identity between the individual and the collective. Jenkins asserts that the ‘proper sociological place for the concept of “identity” is at the heart of our thinking about the relationships between concrete individual behaviour and the necessary abstraction of collectivity’ (2004: 18).

The formation of identity often occurs in response to a changing social landscape, and as a reaction to personal experiences and responses to everyday – or not so everyday – situations and contexts. It is a process of ongoing evaluation between the personal and the public (Goffman 1983). Identity may refer to who we are, but it also allows us, by association, to maintain the illusion of who we want to become and where we belong. In a world of endless opportunities for growth and change, the multiple ‘webs of significance’ that we weave mean that we possess not one identity but several (Geertz 1973: 5). Hall makes the point that ‘identities are never unified and, in late modern times, increasingly fragmented and fractured; never singular but multiply constructed across different, often intersecting and antagonistic, discourses, practices, and positions. They are subject to a radical historicization, and are constantly in the process of change and transformation’ (1996: 4). It is perhaps possible to maintain so many identities that one gets lost amidst them and cannot say for certain any longer which is the ‘true’ identity, if indeed such a thing existed. Milton (2002: 107) has written that people develop a sense of personal identity through ‘an experience of context’, and that anthropologists are obligated to identify carefully that context in order to understand the experiences of others as they understand them (see also Shore and Nugent 2002). Throughout this book, the experiences of republican parading and commemoration will be explored and this will illustrate how aspects of republican identity are allowed to develop and evolve.

Ultimately, identities are formed from past experiences and mediated by cultural frameworks. From this, people in the West understand (or misunderstand) social cues and regulations, etiquette, ways of being in the world. This book seeks to explore how republican identities are constructed and negotiated in Northern Irish society through the process of music-making and parading in republican parading bands, and how other factors, such as commemorations, influence that process.

Identity: Ethnicity and Nationalism

Academic research on Northern Ireland quite often couples the notions of ethnicity and identity. Northern Ireland offers a unique perspective on both terms and their definitions because the meanings are often imperceptibly intertwined with other base elements of society, like religion, politics and gender roles. Although it is possible to speak (or write) of these elements independently, and to do so is especially useful for research purposes, in reality it is not so easy to separate them.

In Northern Ireland, nationalists and republicans view themselves as ‘members of an ethnic nation’ (Nic Craith 2002: 139). Nic Craith further explains that their ‘citizenship of the UK does not detract from their sense of Irish nationality. Instead, it allows them to define themselves in a dual context; as Irish nationals in a British state’ (2002: 139).

Prior to fieldwork, a sense of ethnicity came into play in aspects of everyday life through my experiences of living and working in Northern Ireland, which raised questions as to how ethnicity is conceived of theoretically. Barth’s outline of what constitutes an ethnic group offers a way of thinking about the divisions along certain fault lines in the North; divisions that have taken shape around the notion of ethnicity and not especially – as one might suspect – nationalism. Barth (1969) argues that the term ‘ethnic group’ identifies a population that meets certain criteria, such as biological self-perpetuation, the sharing of fundamental cultural values and a system of communication and interaction, and has a membership that identifies itself and is identified by others as constituting a category distinguishable from other categories of the same order (1969: 10–11).

However, Jenkins points out that Barth’s model is not to be ‘accepted uncritically as a fixed aspect of the social reality in question’ (1997: 18). Though the republican and nationalist communities in the North do fit Barth’s criteria to different degrees, Barth’s definition is too rigid. Weber tells us:

[E]thnic membership does not constitute a group; it only facilitates group formation of any kind, particularly in the political sphere. On the other hand, it is primarily the political community, no matter how artificially organized, that inspires belief in common ethnicity. (1978, cited in Jenkins 1997: 10)

Weber’s understanding makes more sense in the Northern Irish context. Jenkins, who is familiar with Northern Irish articulations of ethnicity, has summarized what he terms ‘the basic social anthropological model of ethnicity’ as being about cultural differentiation and similarity – shared meaning acquired from social interaction and mediation; ethnicity is unfixed and flexible as the culture from which it is derived and, as a social identity, it ‘is collective and individual, externalized in social interaction and internalized in personal self-identification’ (1997: 13–14).

By employing concepts of ethnicity to understand and explain aspects of Northern Irish identities, it becomes easier to describe and analyse the intricacies of everyday life in Northern Ireland. Comparably, a similar look at the concept of nationalism clarifies how ethnicity and nationalism work in conjunction to inform and express identities.

Kedourie, who claimed that nationalism is a nineteenth-century invented doctrine, noted that ‘it is misplaced ingenuity to try and classify nationalisms according to the particular aspect which they choose to emphasize’ (1993 [1960]: 67). In this respect, Kedourie is highlighting the fact that nationalism is as malleable and fluid as identity. As Smith declares, ‘nationalism operates on many levels and may be regarded as a form of culture as much as a species of political ideology and social movement’ and it is necessary ‘to explore nationalism first as a form of culture and identity’ before understanding its political impact and its force on national identity (1991: 71–72). More specifically, in her research on Tanzanian expressions of nationalism through music, Askew concluded:

Just as Foucault advanced our understanding of power as a diffuse resource available to everyone everywhere (albeit to differing degrees) and never the exclusive domain of some over others, so too should we view nationalism as something engaged in by people at all levels of the social matrix – even if their engagement takes the form of outright rejection or dismissive disregard. (2002: 12)

Askew’s observation points to the individual and collective agencies that develop and create degrees of nationalism. In a similar vein, Gellner asserts that ‘nationalism is not the awakening of nations to self-consciousness: it invents nations where they do not exist’ (1964: 169). Similar to Anderson’s (1991 [1983]) theory of the ‘imagined community’, Gellner’s statement emphasizes the significance of individual and group agency in creating a collective belonging. Viewing nationalism from this perspective allows for the spectrum of political, cultural and global engagement.

But while these explanations of nationalism sound similar to the interpretation of ethnicity given above, nationalism exists as a broader expression of culture and identity within a global context of difference and similarity. Nic Craith (2002) has used the concepts of civic nationalism (where nationalism is state-centred) and ethnic nationalism (where belonging is largely determined through linguistic or other cultural similarities or connections). She notes that Northern Ireland is often considered a place where ‘ethnic and civic nationalists are in conflict with one another’ (Nic Craith 2002: 141).

While it was originally thought that similarities of language, history and political aims were essential to the definition of a nation (see Kedourie 1993 [1960]; Smith 1991), Leoussi points out that ‘different political and economic histories of linguistically related communities may impede the growth of sentiments of “national” solidarity and political commitment’ (2001: viii). In Northern Ireland, though English is the main language spoken, differing political goals and commitments (which are based on specific historical narratives and ideologies) lead to different understandings of where national loyalties lie. Smith wrote that nationalism is often used as ‘an inspiration for, and legitimation of, political association’, but he emphasized the symbolic dimensions of nations and ethnic groups (1994: 706). And, as Kedourie noted, ‘it is misplaced ingenuity to try and classify nationalisms according to the particular aspect which they choose to emphasize’ (1993 [1960]: 67; cf. Leoussi 2001). It is less constrictive to understand nationalism in this context as Anderson’s ‘imagined political community’, and he stresses that ‘communities are to be distinguished, not by their falsity/genuineness, but by the style in which they are imagined’ (1991 [1983]: 6). This coincides with Nic Craith’s descriptions of et...