Popular music as a weapon: Irish rebel songs and the onset of the Northern Ireland Troubles

During the Northern Ireland Troubles (1968–98), music served as a key site of contestation. Focusing on the onset of the conflict, this chapter demonstrates how Irish rebel songs acted as an important vehicle in the pursuit of social justice, articulating victims’ voices and saving them as sonic monuments to be remembered and replayed. Using archival evidence, song texts, and interviews with those who lived through the period, the chapter explores the role musicians performed in helping to articulate and disseminate a counter-narrative to that offered by the British media establishment. More darkly, the chapter also illustrates how the British security forces used music as a means to torture suspected republicans, inflicting physical pain and psychological trauma through the weaponization of organized sound.