Introduction

This introduction develops a framework that identifies the book’s subject as encompassing music for both Irish-themed and Irish-produced film. Following a review of comparable literature from Irish cinema and film music studies, it outlines the text’s structural division into three parts. Part 1, ‘Irish themes on screen and in sound’, explores the involvement of Hollywood, British, Irish and continental European composers/musicians with Irish-themed features throughout the 20th century. Part 2, ‘Perception and production from within’, focuses on associations between music and the moving image emerging from productions filmed in Ireland and Northern Ireland from the 1920s to the 1990s. Part 3, ‘Cinematic and musical developments’, charts evolving approaches to soundtracks for domestic (co)productions over three waves of Irish cinema from the 1970s to the 2010s.

The introduction further explores the historical involvement of music in screen representations of Irish characterization, its final section illustrating how recent Celtic-style soundtracks advanced sonic tropes in international productions that were not Irish-themed.