ABSTRACT
Taking Ireland's historical troubles as its overall theme, this chapter first explores soundtracks to dramas set during the long 19th century, from grand orchestral to traditional-derived to contemporary-eclectic. It then examines music and sound for documentary film during the Northern Ireland Troubles, considering how filmed footage of marching bands, ballad singing and church music conventionally connoted associations between ethnicity, identity and music. Later 1990s documentaries further incorporated more aesthetic—and in some cases, ethically questionable—approaches to music and sound design.
The chapter next interprets how 1960s film essays critiquing the social conservatism and economic stagnation of the Republic innovatively integrated folk and traditional texts. Later emigration narratives developed postmodern soundtracks, with domestic popular music tracks adding intertextual commentary to independent TV productions addressing themes of marginalization and abuse. The chapter finally appraises soundtracks to end-of-century historical documentary series, finding approaches from reflexive music/sound bricolage to revisions of epic nationalist scores.
