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Miscellaneous Writings

"Irish Traditional Music and the Copyright Debate."

Article commissioned for the German magazine Irish Folk Festival (Sept. 2003). This article summarizes material from the Ph.D. dissertation.

"Irische traditionelle Musik und die Diskussion über Urheberrechte."

German translation of the above article, donated by Petr Pandula, editor of Irish Folk Festival.

"Questioning IMRO"

This is an article posted on Indymedia (Ireland) on Thursday, July 17, 2003, which raises a few questions about the politics of performing rights.

"Questioning Educational Strategies: The Challenges of Radical Pedagogy in Discussions about Irish Traditional Culture."(PDF)

This is the abstract of a paper presented at Crosbhealach an Cheoil/The Crossroads Conference on the 27th April of this year, at the University of Ulster, Magee College, in Derry. The full paper will appear in the forthcoming conference proceedings, scheduled for publication in Spring 2004. If you'd like a draft copy, you can email me.

"Raising One Higher than the Other": The Hierarchy of Tradition in Representations of Gaelic and English Language Song in Ireland (Excerpt)

Written by Anthony McCann and Lillis Ó Laoire, this article appears in full in the book Global Pop, Local Language, edited by Harris M. Berger and Michael T. Carroll, which is now available from The University Press of Mississippi (272 pp., 2003, ISBN 1578065356) or from Amazon.com and other outlets. Excerpt posted with permission.

Public Lecture, "Beyond the Commons: Intellectual Property and the Masks of Enclosure", November 2002, Library of Congress, Washington DC Summary (PDF)

Beyond the Term "Music"

This is a slightly longer draft of a 2002 AAA conference paper. The term "music" is so common in the English language that it seems natural and inevitable that it be used as an analytic category. However, what if we're just fooling ourselves that there is a thing called "music"? While I'm here, a similar critique could be levelled at the concept of "language", something which I don't address in the paper.

All That Is Not Given is Lost: Irish Traditional Music, Copyright, and Common Property (PDF).

This paper was awarded the 1998 Charles Seeger Prize for Student Ethnomusicology. A partial critique of this article can be found in Chapter 1 of the Beyond the Commons dissertation

Review of Riverdance and Lord of the Dance Videos.

This article was written in collaboration with Ethnochoreologist Orfhlaith Ní Bhriain, who lives in Limerick, Ireland. It was published in the journal Ethnomusicology.

Local Empowerment and International Cooperation

"A Report on the Working Conference, "A Global Assessment of the 1989 Recommendation on the Safeguarding of Traditional Culture and Folklore"." Written by Tressa Berman, Peter Seitel & Anthony McCann.
Published in Cultural Survival Quarterly 24(4):28-31.

Email Thoughts on violence, cultural policy, and the practice of folklore, among other things ...

Notes on Protectionism

This is not protectionism in the economic sense, but "protection" used as a justification for action in situations where it may not be appropriate.

The Impossibility of Translating Séamas Mac Annaidh's Cuaifeach Mo Londubh Buí into English (PDF).

This paper was presented in 1998 at the conference of the International Association for the Study of Irish Literature.

'Ar Lorg na Gaoithe': Death, the Quest for Immortality, and the Pursuit of the Unjustified Self in Séamas Mac Annaidh's Cuaifeach Mo Londubh Buí (PDF).

This thesis was undertaken for the degree of M.Phil in Irish Studies at University College, Galway. It was submitted in 1997. It is testament to my early fondness for the dynamics of literary enclosure, and my fascination even then with attempts to eliminate uncertainty. Apologies for the lack of a contents page, but the three chapters more or less follow the elements of the title.