Livingstone Undergraduate Research Award in the Humanities
Livingstone Undergraduate Research Award in the Humanities
Mollie Naessens
Christy Moore and the Making of a Traditional Irish Rebel Song
View Mollie's project online
My project examines how the songs of Christy Moore (b. 1945), an Irish folk singer, have come to be considered traditional rebel music in Ireland in the aftermath of the Troubles. As a general argument, I make the point that Moore’s music has come to be considered traditional because of his lyrical references to events in Irish history and other traditional songs, use of traditional instruments like bodhráns, performances at political demonstrations for nationalist and other Leftist causes, and radio bans, which supported nationalist narratives of oppression and increased his visibility in republican circles.
What is your major and expected year of graduation?
I majored in history and will graduate in May 2025.
What inspired you to pursue your project?
Throughout my time at Temple University, I have researched the connection between music and various social and political movements. I became interested in researching Christy Moore and Irish rebel music, specifically, after taking a class on political violence, and developed the project with the help of Dr. Glasson, Dr. Motyl, and Dr. Ryan of the history department.
How did the Libraries support your research?
From the time I began the research process for this project, Temple Libraries has served as an incredible resource for accessing physical and digital materials. With the help of library staff including Rebecca Lloyd and Brian Boling, I was able to utilize relevant books found at Charles Library and beyond through the interlibrary loan system, as well as digital archival resources like ProQuest’s Historical Newspapers database. However, even past experiences doing research at the Special Collections Research Center enabled me to move comfortably in physical and digital archival spaces, which allowed me to complete this project.
Christy Moore, the subject of Mollie Naessens’ prize-winning paper, is an icon of twentieth-century Irish music. Mixing Ireland’s deep musical traditions, contemporary pop, and the sensibilities of the folk singer-songwriter, Moore has produced a career’s worth of politically engaged material that marks him as a distinctive voice in Irish culture. Mollie Naessens brought a knowledgeable appreciation of Moore’s music to the History Honors Thesis program in which she wrote her prize-winning paper, and built on that through careful, creative, and deep research in an array of Irish and English sources. This research – and all of the determined work it takes to find such materials from here in Philadelphia – enabled Naessens to relate not only the arc of Moore’s career, but to analyze his place in the cultural history of “the Troubles,” the long-running conflict over the political status and future of Northern Ireland in relation to the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Skillfully weaving together analyses of Moore’s lyrics, Ireland’s complex political history, and an array of journalistic and other accounts of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, Naessens wrote a paper that adeptly examines Moore’s prominent and sometimes controversial place in his own times and his connections to much older traditions of Irish politics and culture.
—Travis Glasson, Associate Professor, Department of History, College of Liberal Arts
This category covers research methods in the humanities (in both traditional and digital forms). Disciplines represented include such fields as Art History, Classics, Literature, Film Studies, Linguistics and Languages, History, Philosophy, and Religious Studies. Much of the scholarly output in the humanities relies upon traditional library research methods using primary and secondary sources, though the specific source types consulted will vary from discipline to discipline.
This award is generously sponsored by John H. Livingstone, SBM ’49.