By Maddie Lasser, Cross Cultural Communications Student at Danish Institute for Study Abroad, Spring 2015
Smelling like stale beer and musk, when my core course visited The Workman’s Club in Dublin, it was like traveling back in time. Now home to a live music venue and bar, The Workman’s Club seemed to be modeled after an idyllic punk-space in the 1970’s, the height of the punk movement in Ireland and around the globe. Our class met with Patrick Wall, a teacher of music technician-ship, who conducted a lesson on the importance of the punk movement in Ireland, specifically Northern Ireland during “The Troubles”, a period of conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted from the late 1960’s to the mid 1990’s between Catholic and Protestant groups.
Meeting the bands
Patrick Wall talked most closely during out visit about two punk bands from Northern Ireland who were communicating in almost contrasting ways about the same conflict.
Stiff Little Fingers, a band originally from Belfast, took a direct approach to communicating their opinions about the conflict. Many of their songs talk specifically about the bombings and attacks occurring between the Catholic and Protestant groups in Belfast during “The Troubles” (this was the time from the late 60’s to late 90s of most intense conflict, including violent attacks between Catholic and Protestant groups. The period of time when the famous event Bloody Sunday occurred: A Catholic march for civil rights gone wrong when British military out of tension and anxiety of potential snipers among the protesters shot and killed 13 civilians ).
Patrick Wall explained in detail that Stiff Little Fingers’s song “Suspect Device” was directly confronting the terror bombings in Belfast and the fear that overwhelmed both the Catholic and Protestant groups. There is even a line in this song where the singers say, “You gotta suss, suss, suss, suss, suss out/Suss suspect device”. Wall explained to our class that the band was using the term suss (meaning find an understanding of/figure out yourselves) to connote that the citizens of Belfast need to think about, why they are attacking each other and understand that there would not be a resolution to the conflict if no one internalized the consequences of the attacks.
The other band Patrick Wall focused on is called The Undertones, a band originally from Londonderry/Derry; an area known for being primarily catholic affiliated. This band is almost a direct contrast to Stiff Little Fingers, even though they were more deeply rooted in a conflict zone. The Undertones sang with more simplicity, focusing on themes such as girls and chocolate, with one of their songs being called “Songs about Chocolate and Girls”. Wall explained, though, even songs that didn’t focus directly on the conflict were still punk songs about the conflict, noting that, “Punk rock is a community. It is about expressing yourself. The Undertones were singing about chocolate and girls and they were expressing themselves”.
Punk’s Impact on the Conflict
We discussed in-depth about how the differences in the two approaches by the two bands to create their sound may be explained by the artists’ ability to cope with the conflict. Stiff Little Fingers were older and less involved in active combat living in Belfast. There were still many attacks, but none that compared to Bloody Sunday in Londonderry/Derry. Furthermore, since The Undertones were teenagers living in Londonderry/Derry during the time of most conflict, it was likely they wrote their songs in such a simplistic way to escape the war-zone they were living in to just be “normal teenagers”.
Patrick Wall mentioned that, during this time, the punk movement in Belfast was a larger community, based on the city atmosphere when compared to Londonderry/Derry. He noted that, even during the most heated points in the conflict, the punk community did not discriminate based upon someone’s religious affiliation.
There is an article written by Martin McLoone from the University of Ulster about punk music’s affiliation with conflict resolution which gives a more in depth look into the impact of said movement. His research very much supports what Patrick Wall mentioned when McLoone quotes Henry McDonald, an Observer correspondent, saying, “When an old cop started taking our names and addresses he looked flummoxed. There were punks from the Glencairn estate, Divis Flats, Ardoyne, the Lower Shankill and the Markets. It must have been the first time since 1969 that he had encountered a large group of youths from working-class republican and loyalist areas that were not trying to kill each other.”
Note: The rest of the article that the above quote is from can be found here! http://eprints.ulster.ac.uk/15544/1/CISR_12_1_03LORES.pdf
Modern-day Punk Culture
At the end of the presentation, I asked Patrick Wall what the modern day state of the punk community was and if it is still bringing together groups that would otherwise be divided. I was interested to learn if this counter-culture was still prevalent in solving conflict or bridging divides and if it was still a part of the culture in Ireland. It seemed, through the presentation at The Workman’s Club, that punk was a quintessential movement in Ireland and I was curious to see how that was maintained today.
Wall mentioned that, unfortunately, the punk scene was not as popular now as it was 30 years ago. However, there is still an active community in Dublin, with smaller bands playing in select venues around the city. In response to my question concerning conflict resolution, Wall noted that most of the conflict resolution happened during the time of active conflict, creating ties between young punks that still exist today. The effect of the movement during The Troubles has connected people that may never have had the opportunity to know each other in the past, forging relationships between future generations since.
Based on my experience in Northern Ireland, I saw such reconciliation between young people to be true. It seemed, based on non-verbal communication, that there was less dividing symbolism, such as flags and graffiti tags, than we had read about there being in the past 10 years. I do not think that the punk movement is entirely to thank for such improvement, and there are still certainly places where the division is strong between Protestants and Catholics, but I believe that movements like the punk movement were contributing factors in resolving group-bias and conflict in Northern Ireland.
It is possible, that in other conflict zones, the use of music as a unifying factor could prevail. With Belfast as a case study, there is room to argue that creating youth movements, perhaps of the counter-culture nature, could aid in conflict resolution. Since punk music was so popular and powerful in the late 1970’s, it is also quite possible that another type of music could forge such unity. Similar conflict resolution has been achieved through the hip-hop movement in 1990’s New York City. Possibly, in the future, we will see music making similar strides in conflict zones.
Listen to Suspect Device here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBYoNYuUVk0
Cross Cultural Communications in Belfast 