Music and Ireland's National Identity: Connecting Folk Music and Cultural Theory Through Emotional Sociology

Music has been a crucial component of every major social movement in history. Though studies have shown that music and other areas of the arts are a product of the surrounding world in response to their own historical context, I propose that music can and has directly impacted society through the effects of music on the human emotional response. By looking at cultural theory through a musicological lens and using Ireland's rich and rooted musical culture as an example, this thesis suggests that with further research into the connection between music and emotions, along with expanding interest in the growing field of emotional sociology, we can explain and identify the role of music as an agent of social change.