Flowing Tides
History and Memory in an Irish Soundscape
Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin
Reviews and Awards
"This is a welcome analytical study of Irish Traditional music, and one that has been heralded by the same author's 1998/2017 Pocket History of Irish Traditional Music. ... This is a book by a writer whose life is surely governed by 'clock time, schedules and timetables', and who earns his living and lives outside of Clare society. But he is intelligently enthusiastic about that community and, refreshingly, he avoids the destructive smugness of academic anti-essentialism...[I]t sets a marker for needed academic studies in other key rural regions in Traditional music, song and dance, not least Connemara, Kerry, and Sligo, and urban centres Galway, Belfast, Dublin, and Cork." -- Folk Music Journal
"In this unparalleled history of traditional music in County Clare, Ireland, Ó hAllmhuráin (Concordia Univ., Montreal) provides a thorough account of how regional, national, and international forces have influenced the music and culture of an area considered by many to be the heart of Irish traditional music. The author offers excellent interdisciplinary context but never gets bogged down in academic prose; instead, his personal connection to the art (he is a skilled performer of traditional Irish music and a native of County Clare) and his facility as a writer give the topic the liveliness it deserves. In the introduction ('L'entrée: Clare and Its Soundscape'), Ó hAllmhuráin astutely observes that County Clare is a 'periphery on the edge of a periphery,' but that even so the musical tradition in this remote area has assimilated an impressive array of cultural influences and had an outsize impact on the rest of the world."--Choice
"This book will be remembered as an important contribution to the newcoming field of what is termed here as 'Celtic ethnomusicology', the latter component defined as 'a hybrid discipline that grew out of comparative musicology'. Here's to the growth of Celtic ethnomusicology." --The Irish Times
"This is a rewarding and valuable book, successfully integrating close detail with a longue durée approach, and it is particularly notable for its emphasis on how Clare's traditional music soundscape has been continuously shaped by cultural flows both local and global, and its refusal to lapse into such binaries as 'tradition and innovation'". --Dublin Review of Books
"Flowing Tides is quite a feat and the fruit of a great deal of time and hard work. Ó hAllurmháin writes that the book had its beginnings in the 1970s, and I would argue that the time and effort was well worthwhile and agree with others that this will prove a seminal work in its field." --Irish Literary Supplement
"Flowing Tides: History and Memory in an Irish Soundscape is a satisfyingly comprehensive volume that will engage both avid and casual readers." -- Kari K. Veblen, Canadian Journal of Irish Studies
