'A Girl's Own Music: Domestic art music and the identity of the Irish young lady in the long nineteenth century'

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The complex history of Ireland in the long nineteenth century is reflected in its musical activities. While the experiences of women in this period have been charted in social history, there has yet to be significant musicological engagement. Despite the last few decades seeing a significant rise in musicological scholarship in Ireland centred around women, much of this research has emphasised individuals in public contexts: professional performers, composers, and organisers. This arguably reflects only a minority of female musical experiences. By overlooking domestic music, we have ignored a crucial aspect of female musical life. This research project aims to uncover how young women in nineteenth-century Ireland interacted with domestic art music; music made in the home, which has mostly been overlooked. It explores how societal influences such as religion, class and other facets of identity impacted the ways in which music was taught and its significance as a means of making women marriageable or providing them with a profession such as becoming a governess or private music teacher. This research subsequently aims to uncover the music played by women in the upper and middle-class Irish homes of the nineteenth century with the overall aim of contributing to a more inclusive musical history of Ireland. Key research questions of this project include: How did religion and class impact a young woman's interaction or introduction with/to art music? Moreover, how did her interactions with art music reflect her identity? From here we can attempt to establish what role domestic art music played in the lives of young women in nineteenth-century Ireland, how gender influenced relationships with music and how the musical experiences of women in Ireland compare to women of similar backgrounds elsewhere. In addition to following the first large-scale project on women's music in Ireland, Women and Music in Ireland (Watson, O'Connor Madsen & Beasaung, 2022), my research will build on existing studies of professional women musicians and musical institutions such as Beausang's 2015 study of women's vocal repertoire in the 19th century and O'Connor Madsen's 2010 research on musical women of Dublin. I will complement and extend this work by exploring the vast network of private and educational musical activity that formed the bedrock and background for women's public musical appearances. My research will also provide crucial context regarding the religious, class and political backgrounds from which these women originated. By evolving these discussions of female education within a musicological framework, this project will both advance knowledge of musical traditions and contribute to a broader understanding of educational and societal factors of this period. Through analysing the music played by several 'levels' of higher and middle-class populations, my research will uncover Irish communities whose relationship with art music has been largely undisclosed such as the emerging Gaelic Catholic middle class. Comparison of these experiences with women in other countries will explore shared cultural markers while simultaneously indicating the unique complexities present in the Irish context. This research will not only contribute to a better understanding of the domestic art music of Irish, nineteenth-century women, but it will highlight the inner workings of Irish society in this period and its perspectives on social mobility, religion, identity and gender. This will not only benefit musicologists in Ireland but also scholars of history, politics, gender studies and education. This proposed project centres on key primary sources. This will include newspapers, periodical publications, school concert programmes, pedagogical materials, school records, published scores for private or chamber use, letters, and correspondences. Materials such as newspapers contain useful primary evidence including reports of school concerts, advertisements for