What is irelands music called and what is the history about it?
Irish traditional music, Irish rock music – depending on the genre. Traditional music, also called ‘trad’ is broken down into the instrumental dance tunes like slides, polkas, jigs, reels, mazurkas, hornpipes – and as these names suggest, they are always Irish in origin, and not necessarily ‘Celtic’ either. Polkas and Mazurkas, for example, are likely to have come to Ireland with German immigrants in the 17th century. Incidentally, ‘Celtic’ is something of a misnomer – the Celts came to Ireland quite late, just 1000 BC, and so did not have the chance to spread their DNA around quite as much as anyone seems to think – less than 7% of modern Irish have ‘Celtic’ DNA, unlike mainland Europe, which has over 75%. Most of us Irish are from an older race, with trade from Africa, Iberia and the Mediterranean added to the mix. Howver, this label is used on music from Britain, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal – despite the fact that these are so strongly influenced by music from Africa. Of the so
