ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of scoring practices for Irish-themed film over the second half of the 20th century. It considers how, while some 1950s productions suggested different approaches to Irish subjects, others perpetuated dominant depictions of bucolic innocence and/or political danger, with many scores continuing to employ stock Irish repertoire and clich’s from previous decades.
While the involvement of domestic composers in the late 1950s–1960s pointed to more authentic traditional sources, international Irish-themed soundtracks still resorted to kitsch and exaggerated tropes of musical characterization. The 1970s saw a rise in screenplays focused on individual subjectivities rather than on communal stereotypes, with some bypassing pseudo-Irish orchestral scores and/or developing eclectic approaches to soundtrack. The chapter finally interprets the emergence of hybrid approaches in the 1980s and 1990s that integrated more authentic traditional practices into revised Hollywood-style scores. These variously contributed to modern re-imaginings of Irish stereotypes and migrant narratives.
