‘Good man, Mary!’ Women musicians and the fraternity of Irish traditional music

The study of gender is ‘inherently a study of relations of asymmetrical power and opportunity’. In the masculine space of the Irish pub, women musicians respond to this power differential by adopting an array of tactics aimed at increasing their musical participation and enjoyment. This essay draws on Foucault’s theory of discourse to examine the gendered historical and contemporary representations of Irish music and musicians and on postmodern feminist theory of the performativity of gender to demonstrate how deeply embedded are our gendered conceptions of subjectivity, music, and nationality.