Conference Presentations - Cultural Sustainability & Music and Identity.

This year I have been collaborating with Daithí Kearney on researching the sustainability of the arts in Kerry. This has led to three conference papers. The first was presented to the ‘Arts, Enterprise and Place in the Rural Creative Economy’ Conference at Newcastle University January 2022. I ventured to Lisbon in July to present a second at the ICTM World Conference. To balance things out Daithi presented a paper at the Atlas Conference, which was held at MTU Cork.

Concertina Ensemble at 46th ICTM World Conference, Lisbon

From my work with Pat Ahern I became interested in how people in religious institutions in Ireland have managed to share and express their musical talents with their congregation and wider audiences. In this respect I was also fortunate to interview both Fr. Pat Ahern and Fr. Ray Kelly on this topic. I subsequently presented a paper to the ‘Hidden Musicians’ Conference April 2022, British Forum of Ethnomusicology.

There is lots of work still to be undertaken in these two areas. I hope to publish some of this shortly.