Music and Noise

An ethnographic study of how the political was configured among controversial post-conflict Northern Irish marching bands

In Music and Noise, anthropologist Sean French examines the practice of controversial Protestant parading in postconflict Northern Ireland, as well as the broader political movement of Loyalism. Protestant parading continues to be a point of contention due to its raucous street commemorations of historical battles won by Protestants over Catholics. Parading has been variously described as triumphalist political hatred by its opponents and apolitical culture by its proponents. However, refraining from common categorizations of parading as straightforwardly political or apolitically “cultural,” French instead asks: political in what way?

As an anthropologist with a Belfast Irish Catholic background, French encountered both warmth and occasional hostility as he joined Protestant marching bands and learned their instruments. He charts the development of a growing “articulate” style of Loyalism, its interplay with the embodied intensity of marching band community representation, and the increasingly semiplayful semiserious tone that acts of intercommunal antagonism take in Northern Ireland. French’s unique position enabled him to reflect on the nature of modern-day sectarianism and ethnopolitical antagonism and to question how possible it is to really know another person’s true beliefs. As a result, this book does not apologize for the more destructive elements of Loyalism but instead offers a more nuanced take on a group who are otherwise often stereotyped as hyperpolitical. Ultimately, by combining ethnography with historical context, Music and Noise offers an in-depth view of what motivates Loyalists to continue to march in modern-day Northern Ireland.