The Long Note: The mediation and mediatisation of Irish traditional music on Irish public radio, 1970-1994

This thesis explores the mediation and mediatisation of Irish traditional music activity, ideas, and discourse in the period 1970-1994 through a case study of long-running Irish traditional music radio programme The Long Note (1974-c.1991) on Irish public broadcaster Radio Teilifís Éireann. The research explores the musical practices and aesthetics that are cultivated, curated, and created in national broadcasting. It focuses on the late twentieth century when practices within Irish musical traditions were slowly becoming subjects of debate. Reference to the structures and materials in use for the creation of music radio on the minority language station RnaG as well as in nearby BBC Ulster affords a comparative aspect to the research. The methodology of the study comprises ethnographic fieldwork, interviews with central figures in music broadcasting and associated industry and institutional figures from this era, and close analysis of both sound and print archival sources.
This radio programming formed spaces for the articulation of Irish national identity and nationalism. Ideas were formed, received, acknowledged, eluded, discussed, and responded to within public broadcasting structures. Quantitative and qualitative inequities of representation in gender and ethnicity existed in this programming, foregrounding particular ideas of Irishness (male, settled). Liveness was a consistent theme in discourse surrounding the programme, categorised by separate taxonomies. Liveness was used to construct authenticity, and this process was connected to emerging discourses on tradition and innovation in this music which came to public attention in the mid-1990s. The historical perspective of this thesis adds to existing studies of mediation and mediatisation by coinciding with a period of accelerated development of Irish traditional music in the commercial realm, when Irish traditional musicians were beginning to present themselves on a larger scale as professional musicians. Radio was a site of important activity in this process, sowing roots for the global mediation and mediatisation of Irish folk and traditional music exemplified by Riverdance in the mid-1990s. Issues of representation, aesthetics and cultural nationalism also influenced the development of professionalism and commercialism in Irish traditional music in the period. This research contributes to the construction of an interdisciplinary framework for the exploration of the mediation and mediatisation of traditional music, furthering conversations on the impact of technology on musical communities, cultures, nations, and societies.