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Celtic punk

Celtic punk is punk rock mixed with traditional Celtic music. Celtic punk bands often play traditional Celtic folk songs, contemporary/political folk songs, and original compositions.[3] Common themes in Celtic punk music include politics, Celtic culture (particularly Gaelic culture) and identity, heritage, religion, drinking and working class pride.

Celtic punk
Stylistic origins
Cultural origins1980s, London, England: Irish folk and punk rock scenes
Regional scenes
Other topics

The genre was popularised in the 1980s by the Pogues. It is considered part of the broader folk punk genre, although that term is often used in North America for acoustic forms of punk rock rather than a mixture of traditional folk music and punk rock.

The typical Celtic punk band includes rock instrumentation as well as traditional instruments such as bagpipes, fiddle, tin whistle, accordion, mandolin, and banjo. Like Celtic rock, Celtic punk is a form of Celtic fusion.[4]

While popular around the world, Celtic punk is often criticized for certain non-Irish bands appropriating and misrepresenting Irish culture (perpetuating 'Plastic Paddy' stereotypes) with an excessive focus on drinking and fighting.[5][6] Other folk-punk bands that incorporate traditional folk material, such as The Dreadnoughts and Cordelia's Dad, have expressed disdain at being called 'Celtic punk' despite Celtic material making up a very small portion of their overall material (either due the common occurrence of non-Celtic folk songs being called 'Celtic,' or due to the misunderstanding that all traditional folk music mixed with punk rock is Celtic punk).[6][7]

History

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Celtic punk's origins date back to 1960s and 1970s folk rock musicians who played Irish folk music and Celtic rock in the UK, as well as in more traditional Celtic folk bands such as the Dubliners and the Clancy Brothers. The Scottish band the Skids were possibly the first UK punk band to add a strong folk music element, as they did on their 1981 album Joy. Around the same time in London, Shane MacGowan and Spider Stacy began experimenting with a sound that became the Pogues, which most consider to be the prototypical Celtic punk band.[3] Their early sets included a mixture of traditional folk songs and original songs written in a traditional style but performed in a punk style.[8] Other early Celtic punk bands included Nyah Fearties, Australia's Roaring Jack and Norway's Greenland Whalefishers.

The 1990s gave rise to a Celtic punk movement in North America, centered around the likes of the Dropkick Murphys of Quincy, Massachusetts, and Chicago's The Tossers - both from cities with particularly large population of Irish Americans - as well as LA's Flogging Molly (founded by Irish emigrant Dave King). North American Celtic punk bands have been influenced by American forms of music, and commonly sing in English.[9]

Fashion

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Like other punk subcultures, Celtic punk has its own fashions as well. Similar to the music, Celtic punk fashion is a mixture of standard punk fashion and traditional Celtic clothing, most notably (and sometimes erronously) tartans. Standard items in Celtic punk fashion include leather jackets, tartans, chains, studs, kilts, and mohawks. The favored tartan among punks in 70s-80s Britain was the Royal Stewart tartan, due to both its widespread availability and perceived anti-establishment connotations.[10]

Language

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The Scottish Gaelic punk scene can be considered a part of the larger Celtic punk subculture, as even though most bands from that scene did not incorporate traditional sounds into their music, they sang in Scottish Gaelic in support of their traditional language and in protest of linguistic homogenization (among many other issues).[11] They taught each other the language in DIY classes called 'Gaelic for Punks', and the scene was centered around the Sabhal Mòr Ostaig college on the Isle of Skye, Scotland.[12]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Ćunković, Milan. "Alfapop". Nadlanu (. Retrieved 6 October 2016.
  2. ^ Tabak, Nate; Mullins, Lisa (15 August 2013). "Belgrade's The Orthodox Celts Put Twist on Irish Standards". PRI. Retrieved 6 October 2016.
  3. ^ a b P. Buckley, The Rough Guide to Rock (London: Rough Guides, 2003), p. 798.
  4. ^ B. Sweers, Electric Folk: Changing Face of English Traditional Music (Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 197-8.
  5. ^ Power, Ed (2010-03-17). "Celebrating St Patrick's Day? Don't do it with the Pogues ..." The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-09-10.
  6. ^ a b Dreadnoughts, The (2022-10-23). "On 'Celtic Punk'". Roll And Go: Dreadnoughts Blog. Retrieved 2024-09-10.
  7. ^ "Cordelia's Dad Interviewed by Auger/Anvil". cordeliasdad.com. Retrieved 2024-09-10.
  8. ^ Scanlon, A. The Lost Decade. Omnibus Press, 1988
  9. ^ J. Herman, ‘British Folk-Rock; Celtic Rock’, The Journal of American Folklore, 107, (425), (1994) pp. 54-8.
  10. ^ www.forensicfashion.com http://www.forensicfashion.com/1982CelticPunk.html. Retrieved 2024-09-10. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  11. ^ McLaughlin, N. and McLoone, M. (2000) "Hybridity and National Musics: The Case of Irish Rock Music." Popular Music 19(2), pp. 181–199.
  12. ^ MacÀdhaimh, Seonaidh (19 March 2005). "An dà chòmhlan 'punc' a tha a' seinn sa Ghàidhlig". The Scotsman (in Scottish Gaelic). Edinburgh. Archived from the original on 24 October 2007.
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