Celtic punk is punk rock mixed with traditional

Celtic music Celtic music is a broad grouping of music genres that evolved out of the folk music traditions of the Celtic people of Northwestern Europe. It refers to both orally-transmitted traditional music and recorded music and the styles vary considerab ...

. Celtic punk bands often play traditional Irish, Welsh or Scottish folk and political songs, as well as original compositions.P. Buckley, ''The Rough Guide to Rock'' (London: Rough Guides, 2003), p. 798. Common themes in Celtic punk music include politics, Celtic culture and identity, heritage, religion, drinking and working class pride. The genre was popularized in the 1980s by The Pogues. The term ''Celtic punk'' is usually used to describe bands who base their music in Irish or Scottish traditional music. It is considered part of the broader

folk punk Folk punk (known in its early days as rogue folk) is a fusion of folk music and punk rock. It was popularized in the early 1980s by the Pogues in England, and by Violent Femmes in the United States. Folk punk achieved some mainstream success in ...

genre, but that term tends to be used for bands that use English, American and other forms of folk music as inspiration. The typical Celtic punk band includes rock instrumentation as well as traditional instruments such as

bagpipes Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Great Highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, No ...

fiddle A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, th ...

, tin whistle,

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

mandolin A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...

, and

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

. Like Celtic rock, Celtic punk is a form of

Celtic fusion Celtic fusion is an umbrella term for any modern music which incorporates influences considered "Celtic", or Celtic music which incorporates modern music. It is a syncretic musical tradition which borrows freely from the perceived "Celtic" music ...

.B. Sweers, ''Electric Folk: Changing Face of English Traditional Music'' (Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 197-8.

History

Celtic punk's origins date back to 1960s and 1970s folk rock musicians who played Irish folk music and Celtic rock in the UK, as well as in more traditional Celtic folk bands such as the Dubliners and the Clancy Brothers. The Scottish band the Skids were possibly the first UK punk band to add a strong folk music element, as they did on their 1981 album '' Joy''. Around the same time in London, Shane MacGowan and Spider Stacy began experimenting with a sound that became the Pogues. Their early sets included a mixture of traditional folk songs and original songs written in a traditional style but performed in a punk style. Other early Celtic punk bands included

Nyah Fearties Nyah Fearties were a Scottish music band from the village of Lugton, Scotland, that created a near-unique brand of anarchic modern folk between 1982 and 1995. Combining the rich traditional music and storytelling culture of its native Ayrshire ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

's Roaring Jack and Norway's

Greenland Whalefishers Greenland Whalefishers, named after the traditional folk tune The Greenland Whale Fisheries, is a Norwegian folk punk band established in 1994, playing music influenced by Celtic traditional music combined with British punk. The musical style of ...

. The 1990s gave rise to a Celtic punk movement in North America, centered around the likes of the

Dropkick Murphys Dropkick Murphys are an American Celtic punk band formed in Quincy, Massachusetts in 1996. Singer and bassist Ken Casey has been the band's only constant member. Other current members include drummer Matt Kelly (1997– ), singer Al Barr (199 ...

of Massachusetts, which has a particularly large population of Irish Americans. North American Celtic punk bands have been influenced by American forms of music. These groups commonly sang in English.J. Herman, ‘British Folk-Rock; Celtic Rock’, ''The Journal of American Folklore,'' 107, (425), (1994) pp. 54-8.

References

External links

Shite'n'OnionsPaddy RockIrish Punk
{{Punk British styles of music Celtic music Fusion music genres Punk rock genres British rock music genres

History

See also

References

External links