‘Earthly, sensual, devilish’
Sex, ‘race’ and jazz in post-independence Ireland
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jazz.v4i1.57Keywords:
broadcasting, Catholic conservativism, morality dance hall, national identityAbstract
This article examines racialized and sexualized constructions of jazz in Ireland in the post-independence era. Drawing on newspaper coverage and Government debate from 1920 to 1938, I argue that the broadcasting service and the dance halls represented key sites of formation of Irish national identity, which was based upon gendered productions of space and place. The nation-building project was premised upon the idealization of a rural, sanitized moral landscape. In this period, fears of foreign cultural corruption and the liberalization of sexual mores were articulated through intensive campaigning, led by the Catholic elite and largely supported by the state, against jazz music which was seen as a cultural import that threatened Irish cultural identity and the nation.
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——(1936b) ‘December 7. Irish Girl Emigrants’. Irish Independent: 5.
——(1936c) ‘December 8. Irish Girl Emigrants’. Irish Independent: 8.
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Innes, Lyn (1994) ‘Virgin Territories and Motherlands: Colonial and Nationalist Representations of Africa and Ireland’. Feminist Review 47 (Summer): 1–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1395250
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O?Connor, Barbara (2003) ‘Ruin and Romance: Heterosexual Discourses on Irish Popular Dance, 1920–1960’. Irish Journal of Sociology 12/2: 50–67.
——(2005) ‘Sexing the Nation: Discourses of the Dancing Body in Ireland in the 1930s’. Journal of Gender Studies 14/2 (July): 89–105.
Ó hAllmhuráin, Gearóid (2005) ‘Dancing on the Hobs of Hell: Rural Communities in Clare and the Dance Halls Act of 1935’. New Hibernia Review 9/4: 9–18.
Quigley, Mark (2003) ‘Modernity’s Edge: Speaking Silence on the Blasket Islands’. Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies 5/3: 382–406. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369801032000135639
Ryan, Louise (1998a) ‘Negotiating Modernity and Tradition: Newspaper Debates on the “Modern Girl” in the Irish Free State’. Journal of Gender Studies 7/2 (July): 181–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09589236.1998.9960711
——(1998b) ‘Constructing “Irishwoman”: Modern Girls and Comely Maidens’. Irish Studies Review 6/3 (December): 263–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09670889808455611
——(1999) ‘ “Furies” and “Diehards”: Women and Irish Republicanism in the Early Twentieth Century’. Gender and History 11/2: 256–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1468-0424.00142
——(2001) ‘Irish Female Emigration in the 1930s: Transgressing Space and Culture’. English 8/3: 271–82.
Shipton, Alyn (2001) A New History of Jazz. London and New York: Continuum.
Smith, James M. (2004) ‘The Politics of Sexual Knowledge: The Origins of Ireland?s Containment Culture and the Carrigan Report (1931)’. Journal of the History of Sexuality 13/2: 208–233. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/sex.2004.0071
Smyth, Jim (1993) ‘Dancing, Depravity and All That Jazz: The Public Dance Halls of 1935’. History Ireland 1/2 (Summer): 51–54.
Stokes, Martin (1994) ‘Introduction’. In Ethnicity, Identity and Music: The Musical Construction of Place, ed. Martin Stokes. Oxford: Berg.
Valiulis, M. G. (1995) ‘Power, Gender, and Identity in the Irish Free State’. Journal of Women?s History 7/1: 117–36.
Whyte, John H. (1971) Church and State in Modern Ireland 1923–1970. New York: Barnes and Noble.
Yuval-Davis, Nira (1997) Gender and Nation. London: Sage.
Beaumont, Caitríona (1997) ‘Women and the Politics of Equality: The Irish Women’s Movement 1930–1943’. In Women and Irish Society, ed. Maryann Valiulis and Mary O’Dowd, 177–88. Dublin: Wolfhound Press.
Biddle, Ian, and Vanessa Knights (2007) ‘Introduction: National Popular Musics: Betwixt and Beyond the Local and Global’. In Music, National Identity and the Politics of Location: Between the Global and the Local, ed. Ian Biddle and Vanessa Knights. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Brennan, Helen (1994) ‘Reinventing Tradition: The Boundaries of Irish Dance’. History Ireland 2/2: 22–24.
Carlson, Julia (1990) Banned in Ireland: Censorship and the Irish Experience. London: Routledge.
Chan, Suzanna (2005) ‘Some Notes on Deconstructing Ireland’s Whiteness: Immigrants, Emigrants and the Perils of Jazz’. Variant 2/22: 20–21.
Crowley, Una, and Rob Kitchin (2008) ‘Producing “Decent Girls”: Governmentality and the Moral Geographies of Sexual Conduct in Ireland (1922–1937)’. Gender, Place & Culture 15/4 (August): 355–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09663690802155553
Curtis, P. J. (1994) Notes from the Heart: A Celebration of Traditional Irish Music. Dublin: Torc.
Daly, Mary E. (1995) ‘Women in the Irish Free State, 1922–39: The Interaction between Economics and Ideology’. Journal of Women’s History 6, no. 4; 7, no. 1 (Winter/Spring): 99–116.
Duffy, Johannah (2009) ‘Jazz, Identity and Sexuality in Ireland during the Interwar Years’. Irish Journal of American Studies Online 1.
Gaffney, Gertrude (1936a) ‘December 3. A Grave Problem’. Irish Independent: 11.
——(1936b) ‘December 7. Irish Girl Emigrants’. Irish Independent: 5.
——(1936c) ‘December 8. Irish Girl Emigrants’. Irish Independent: 8.
——(1936d) ‘December 10. Irish Girl Emigrants’. Irish Independent: 7.
——(1936e) ‘December 11. Irish Girl Emigrants’. Irish Independent: 6.
——(1936f) ‘December 15. Irish Girl Emigrants’. Irish Independent: 7.
Garner, Steve (2004) Racism in the Irish Experience. London: Pluto Press.
——(2007) Whiteness: An Introduction. London: Routledge.
Ignatiev, Noel (1995) How the Irish Became White. London: Routledge.
Inglis, Tom (2005) ‘Origins and Legacies of Irish Prudery: Sexuality and Social Control in Modern Ireland’. Eire-Ireland 14/3-4: 9–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/eir.2005.0022
Innes, Lyn (1994) ‘Virgin Territories and Motherlands: Colonial and Nationalist Representations of Africa and Ireland’. Feminist Review 47 (Summer): 1–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1395250
Lee, Joseph (1973) The Modernisation of Irish Society, 1848–1918. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan.
Long, Siobhán (2006) ‘Passing through the Céilí Subculture’. Irish Times, 7 June: 12.
Luddy, Maria (2007) ‘Sex and the Single Girl in 1920s and 1930s Ireland’. The Irish Review 35/1: 79–91.
McClintock, Anne (1993) ‘Family Feuds: Gender, Nationalism and the Family’. Feminist Review 44: 61–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1395196
McLoone, Martin (2000) ‘Music Hall Dope and British Propaganda? Cultural Identity and Early Broadcasting in Ireland’. Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 20/3 (August): 301–315. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01439680050127770
McVeigh, Robbie, and Bill Rolston (2009) ‘Civilising the Irish’. Race & Class 51/1 (June): 2–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0306396809106160
Martin, Angela (1997) The Practice of Identity and an Irish Sense of Place’. Gender, Place & Culture 4/1 (March): 89–114. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09663699725512
Massey, Doreen (1998) Space, Place and Gender. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Mayer, Tamar (ed.) (2000) Gender Ironies of Nationalism: Sexing the Nation. London: Routledge.
Meaney, Geraldine (2007) ‘Race, Sex and Nation’. The Irish Review 35: 46–63.
Nash, Catherine (1997) ‘Embodied Irishness: Gender, Sexuality and Irish Identities’. In In Search of Ireland: A Cultural Geography, ed. Brian Graham. London and New York: Routledge.
O?Connor, Barbara (2003) ‘Ruin and Romance: Heterosexual Discourses on Irish Popular Dance, 1920–1960’. Irish Journal of Sociology 12/2: 50–67.
——(2005) ‘Sexing the Nation: Discourses of the Dancing Body in Ireland in the 1930s’. Journal of Gender Studies 14/2 (July): 89–105.
Ó hAllmhuráin, Gearóid (2005) ‘Dancing on the Hobs of Hell: Rural Communities in Clare and the Dance Halls Act of 1935’. New Hibernia Review 9/4: 9–18.
Quigley, Mark (2003) ‘Modernity’s Edge: Speaking Silence on the Blasket Islands’. Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies 5/3: 382–406. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369801032000135639
Ryan, Louise (1998a) ‘Negotiating Modernity and Tradition: Newspaper Debates on the “Modern Girl” in the Irish Free State’. Journal of Gender Studies 7/2 (July): 181–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09589236.1998.9960711
——(1998b) ‘Constructing “Irishwoman”: Modern Girls and Comely Maidens’. Irish Studies Review 6/3 (December): 263–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09670889808455611
——(1999) ‘ “Furies” and “Diehards”: Women and Irish Republicanism in the Early Twentieth Century’. Gender and History 11/2: 256–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1468-0424.00142
——(2001) ‘Irish Female Emigration in the 1930s: Transgressing Space and Culture’. English 8/3: 271–82.
Shipton, Alyn (2001) A New History of Jazz. London and New York: Continuum.
Smith, James M. (2004) ‘The Politics of Sexual Knowledge: The Origins of Ireland?s Containment Culture and the Carrigan Report (1931)’. Journal of the History of Sexuality 13/2: 208–233. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/sex.2004.0071
Smyth, Jim (1993) ‘Dancing, Depravity and All That Jazz: The Public Dance Halls of 1935’. History Ireland 1/2 (Summer): 51–54.
Stokes, Martin (1994) ‘Introduction’. In Ethnicity, Identity and Music: The Musical Construction of Place, ed. Martin Stokes. Oxford: Berg.
Valiulis, M. G. (1995) ‘Power, Gender, and Identity in the Irish Free State’. Journal of Women?s History 7/1: 117–36.
Whyte, John H. (1971) Church and State in Modern Ireland 1923–1970. New York: Barnes and Noble.
Yuval-Davis, Nira (1997) Gender and Nation. London: Sage.
Published
2011-11-15
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Hogan, E. (2011). ‘Earthly, sensual, devilish’: Sex, ‘race’ and jazz in post-independence Ireland. Jazz Research Journal, 4(1), 57-79. https://doi.org/10.1558/jazz.v4i1.57
