Irish Arts & Music

Traditional Arts of Ireland

Ireland’s artistic heritage is one of indigenous styles adapting to imported technologies and cultures. Its oldest arts have survived on stone monuments over 5,000 years old. The artists who created them were likely the descendants of European farmers, who had migrated to the island over a thousand years prior. Little is known about the arts of the hunters and gatherers they supplanted. The new arrivals were part of a larger European art tradition, using spirals and natural imagery common throughout the continent. Of their megaliths, passage tombs at sites like Newgrange are now most prominent.

Later Celtic migrations brought new metalworking techniques to the island. Like the cultures before them, their visual styles used interlacing patterns and spirals, now more complex and dotted with the figures of humans, plants, and animals. This aesthetic, known as the Insular Celtic style, would be the standard in Ireland through the Middle Ages. As British control over the island grew, its formal arts tended toward English and Scottish tastes. Below this, however, flowed an undercurrent of native Irish stories, music, and visual arts which have survived to the present day.

Irish Poetry and Literature

Perhaps the most important art of Ireland is its poetry and literature, which are closely tied to its musical traditions. Before the Latin alphabet, the Irish possessed an oral culture. Their laws, histories, religion, and legends were all passed down orally and memorized by each new generation. By encoding this knowledge in poetry, they made it easier to learn and transmit accurately. Those who held this knowledge included the druid, fili, physician, and brehon classes, all of whom enjoyed high social status. The druids in particular served as both educators, advisers, and priests.

This affinity for poetry and learning continued through medieval Christian monasteries and the Gaelic courts. Irish monks produced lavishly decorated manuscripts, sometimes with their own contributions in the margins. Secular filid poets recorded clan lineages and histories. The bards, trained as musicians and storytellers, performed for entertainment. The power of words made crossing a bard risky. They wrote praise-poems on commission, but they could also turn their words to scathing, memorable insults.

Irish poetry and literature reached another high point in the 19th and 20th centuries. Writers like W.B Yeats, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Jonathan Swift, and Oscar Wilde are still widely read today. Storytelling remains a common cultural art in Ireland. Many of its oldest myths, legends, and chronicles, along with more recent tales and jokes, have survived to the present day.

Metalworking of Ireland

Ireland is also home to a strong tradition of metalworking, particularly in ornamental goods. Bog hoards have preserved a large number of ancient artifacts that might otherwise have been lost, stolen, or melted down. Among these, jewelry, cauldrons, and chalices are some of the most common finds. The island is well known for its prehistoric torcs, plug earrings, and flat gold discs worn around the neck. Later, its Celtic nobility preferred to secure their mantles with ornate penannular brooches. Of these, the Tara brooch is best known. Medieval Irish crafts show a preference for delicate interlace studded with precious stones. This taste was shared between religious reliquaries, manuscript covers, jewelry, and illustrations alike.

Irish Manuscripts and Painting

The final major art of medieval Ireland is illustration, exemplified by the manuscripts produced in Insular monasteries. Of these, the finest surviving example is the Book of Kells. Dated to the early 9th century, the Book of Kells is thought to have been started on the island monastery of Iona. It wound up at the monastery of Kells in County Meath, possibly as the result of Viking raids on Iona. Today, the manuscript is a symbol of Irish history and artistic achievement.

A much later generation of Irish artists would find fame in the 19th and 20th centuries. Their art was influenced by both European and native Irish cultures, regardless of their own ancestry. Notable Irish painters of this period include Walter Osborne, William John Leech, Charles Jervas, Sir John Lavery, and Roderic O’Conor, and Jack Butler Yeats.

Textile Arts of Ireland

Since ancient times, the textile arts have been an important aspect of Irish society. Women historically learned to weave, sew, and embroider, both for their families and for paying clients. Skillful embroidery was highly valued in ancient Ireland as a status symbol. In the 19th century, when many Irish families lived in poverty, women developed a form of delicate crochet, or Irish lace. Their work, a ‘cottage industry,’ provided a much needed source of income, particularly during the Great Famine. The mass production of lace in factories eventually drowned out family-run lace businesses, though the art is still practiced.

Irish Music and Dance

Music is a central art of Ireland, in keeping with its poetic past. Its greatest native instruments are the harp and human voice. Skilled singers and harpists were both prized in Gaelic courts. When Irish missionaries traveled abroad, they often brought their harps with them. In addition, Irish masters were hired by foreign nobles to train their own children and musicians. Their musical traditions thus permeated the courts and sacred centers of Europe. Musical families passed down their skill for thousands of years. The art of the harpists only declined in the 16th century, as the Gaelic courts supporting them were slowly driven out of existence. Today, the art has been revived.

Modern Irish folk music is more typically focused on the fiddle, a medieval introduction. Other common instruments include flutes, uilleann pipes, and bodhrán drums. The music may be accompanied by fast-paced dances like reels, hornpipes, and jigs. Irish stepdance is a popular folk dance that emphasizes careful control and form. During a performance, the dancer’s upper body is meant to remain nearly motionless, contrasted by high steps and leaps.

Modern Art in Ireland

Modern Irish art tends to reflect both the ancient customs and turbulent modern history of the island. Its artists have found particular success in the global music industry through Irish or Irish-American bands like Flogging Molly, the Pogues, U2, Dropkick Murphys, and the Dubliners. In addition, Irish music played a significant role in the development of American genres like country and bluegrass. The banjo, originally adopted from African-American musicians, grew popular among Irish and Scottish artists and soon traveled back to Ireland itself. Beyond its music, the people of Ireland are also involved in modern arts such as cinema, graphic design, video game production, and contemporary painting and sculpture.

References

Devaney, Erik. “How the Irish and the Scots Influenced American Music.” London Celtic Punks, London Celtic Punks, 28 Feb. 2016, londoncelticpunks.wordpress.com/2016/02/28/how-the-irish-and-the-scots-influenced-american-music/.

Hegarty, Neil. The Story of Ireland: A History of the Irish People. Macmillan. 2012.

Hollis, Daniel Webster. The History of Ireland. Greenwood Publishing Group. 2011.

Hourihane, Colum. From Ireland Coming: Irish Art from the Early Christian to the Late Gothic Period and Its European Context. Princeton University Press. 2001.

Joyce, Patrick Weston. A Smaller Social History of Ancient Ireland. Longmans, Green, and Co. 1908.

Ranelagh, John O'Beirne. A Short History of Ireland. Cambridge University Press. 2012.

“The World Factbook: Ireland.” Central Intelligence Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, 24 Oct. 2018, www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ei.html.

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Traditions of the Ancestors

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