Given the labyrinthine body of critical work that attends Irish literature, this compact and lucidly written collection of essays, 10 in all, is a welcome enquiry into the place of music within the growing discipline of Contemporary Irish Studies. The immediate strength of this book is that it weaves the discussion through the multi-disciplined view of Cultural History Studies. Essays touch on Music and Media, Gender, Politics, History, Religion and Contemporary European Philosophy to name but a few, and its temporal scope reaches back to the late 1700s. The breadth of Gerry Smyth's interest and reading on the topic is instantly apparent. While it may fall short, probably through necessity, of a detailed discourse on what is a vast area, there is certainly enough here to whet the appetite of not just the student and experienced researcher looking for ‘leads’, but the lay reader as well.

In the first chapter Smyth confidently sets out his stall appealing to the case for a more committed academic appraisal of how all kinds of music feature within the sphere of Irish studies with special regard to notions of Irish identity. Part of his endeavour here is to redress the balance towards music as a key signifier within Irish cultural affairs away from its commonly perceived status as a ‘poor relative’ of the established dynastic realm that is Anglo Irish Literature.

It is perhaps inevitable that a book that interfaces so many disciplines will have gaps in it, such as the scant representation of art music in discussions, serving to highlight all the more the inherent problems in talking about a musical culture that is almost universally perceived to be synonymous with only certain kinds of music, namely Traditional. When pointing to the almost ‘commonplaceness’ of the revered litany of Irish writers within the matrix of Contemporary Irish Studies, Smyth complains that many non-specialists would struggle to name a handful of Irish composers from the last two centuries (p. 9). He doesn't help matters, however, by not mentioning any himself in 180 pages of writing. The notable exceptions are rather conservative figures like Michael O'Suilleabhain and Sean O'Riada who, while important in themselves, could hardly be located within the cutting edge of art music in Ireland today, as even a cursory browse at www.cmc.ie will testify. Smyth does appear to be conscious of this shortcoming, however, and compensates for it by pointing the reader in the direction of the Irish musicologist Harry White, who is probably at the forefront of research for those with a more specific interest in the intersections of art music and Irish cultural life. Nevertheless, this collection of essays will serve as a useful handbook for the scholar looking for leads, of which it has many. Perhaps one of the most significant essays, ‘Music, politics and identity in B. MacLaverty's Grace Notes’ at least begins to engage with ‘Music and the Northern Irish Troubles’. Smyth, by his own admission, is not a musicologist but, via a shrewd take on repetition as a structural device in not just the novel but in music, he makes a persuasive argument for construing the phenomenon of repetition in both as a manifestation of the curious cultural milieu surrounding the Troubles in Northern Ireland:

Essay number eight, by way of a discussion on Celtic music, human rights and the female body, is a poignant memoriam to the 15-year-old Anne Lovet whose life and that of her baby were lost as she tried to give birth ‘alone and unaided’ at the foot of a shrine to the Virgin Mary. Hers became an iconic case in sociological discussions relating to modern Ireland and the convoluted intersections of Church, State, the individual and the politics of sex. Christy Moore's song ‘Middle of the island’ which addresses the Anne Lovet case is Smyth's point of entry into a detailed discussion that illuminates ways in which the singer-songwriter can counteract the double hegemony of State and Church in a country like Ireland where both have exercised such a unique pull on the life of the individual. What emerges is a convincing portrait of musical technique as subversive commentator on the perceived injustices at play that can result in a 15-year-old girl losing her life in such a way.

There is a much to commend this book and many starting points are initiated here that will hopefully provoke greater interest in this important area of research yet in its infancy.