Crafting Gentleness

Presented at Crosbhealach an Cheoil/The Crossroads Conference, University of Ulster, Magee College, Derry, April 27th, 2003.

Due to be published as part of the conference proceedings in Spring 2004.

Now available in full

Scholars in the field of radical pedagogy have critically analyzed the role and effect of institutional education in our lives. Thinkers such as Paolo Freire, Ivan Illich and others have highlighted the negative contribution of many formal educational strategies to relations of domination, oppression, and dehumanization. The intense commodification of knowledge experienced in many educational contexts, they argue, can be profoundly disempowering. Illich calls for the disestablishment of the schooling system itself. More recently, Prakash and Esteva make the case that formal education constitutes an assault on the values of traditional communities. They interrogate the relationship between the socializing power of education and a globalizing capitalist ethos, arguing that "education" often constitutes an insidious continuation of colonial ideologies.

In postcolonial Ireland such concerns must be taken seriously. This paper is an opportunity to further interrogate the relationship between formal education and the value systems of "vernacular" or "traditional" culture in Irish contexts. By critically addressing the issues raised by the increasing presence of formal educational authorities in the discourses and practices of "Irish traditional music", we can perhaps assess the effects of formal education on the ways we understand "tradition" and "wisdom" in our lives.