Out with Paganism and all that Jazz
Fears of scarlet women, outsiders and immoral music enflamed Irish newspapers in the 1920s, brought thousands onto the streets of Leitrim in protest during 1934 and even led RTÉ to ban jazz in 1940s. 90 years on from the first day of the Irish Free State, Christine Tobin investigates the fears of an unstable, newly independent country and its attempt to define a sense of Irishness. Speaking to key historians, musicologists and contemporary jazz musicians, Christine reflects on the legacy of the Irish State and Church’s attempts to control music and holds a mirror up to our contemporary attitudes towards music and morality. Interspaced with readings from contemporaneous articles and Dáil debates, RTÉ archive and selected jazz tracks, she explores the nature of cultural repression through that most simple of human delights, music.
Producer: Ruth Fitzsimons
Executive producer: Alyn Shipton
Produced by Smooth Operations Productions (Ireland) and made with the support of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland’s Sound and Vision funding scheme.
RTÉ lyric fm, Friday 7th December, 7pm-8pm