Published in Rock Music Studies, March 2021

This paper traces how the international music press used the clothing and appearance of the Irish blues/rock musician Rory Gallagher to mythologize him as the “People’s Guitarist.” I explore how this image was constructed and developed over time, as well as Gallagher’s own response to this mythologization and how it has consolidated since his death in 1995. I argue that Gallagher’s unwillingness to compromise his integrity and shift his music or clothing to fit changing trends made him an anomaly in an image-conscious music industry. Thus, his appearance became an easy target for the music press who focused overwhelmingly on his clothing in interviews and articles. This focus unfairly drew attention away from his music and downplayed the important contribution he made to the world of blues and rock.

Published in Review of Irish Studies in Europe (January 2023)

This paper seeks to explore the presence of Irish stereotyping in the international music press using a case study of the Irish blues rock musician Rory Gallagher. Using a dataset of 600 articles about Gallagher published between 1968 and 1998, it draws upon a combination of corpus and thematic analysis to identify frequently occurring Irish stereotypes and how they were used to describe him, embedding arguments in postcolonial theory, particularly the work of Homi K. Bhabha. The analysis identifies five major themes—the Irish as violent troublemakers; the Irish as heavy drinkers; the ‘Irish’ way of talking; the Irish as ‘dumb Paddys’; Irish folklore and traditional ways of life—highlighting the different roles into which Gallagher was unwillingly cast by the music press. These references often wrapped Irish prejudice in a cloak of fun and frivolity, which made it seem harmless and trivial. However, such disparagement humour fostered discrimination by moulding (negative) public opinion of what it meant to be Irish at a time when Anglo-Irish tensions were already high and ignored the deeply emotional impact of the Northern Irish conflict on Gallagher. It also took attention away from Gallagher’s music and, in doing so, downplayed the important contribution he made to the world of blues and rock.

Published in Ethnomusicology Forum (April 2024)

This paper traces a walking tour of Cork City that I recently undertook, using an autoethnographic perspective to tap into the linguistic and semiotic features of places and spaces associated with the blues musician Rory Gallagher and how they are tied to specific music memories. To do this, I draw on the theory of semiotic landscapes, yet put forward the term semiotic musicscapes to account for the imagined, embodied and emotional aspects of the visual linguistic environment that such music walks entail. I argue that these forms of secular pilgrimage turn the ‘ordinary’ into the ‘extraordinary’, relying on both specialised music knowledge and the imaginarium to make true meaning from visual and verbal signs. The paper, thus, offers a new way for ethnomusicologists to explore the cultural geography of music, as well as for (socio)linguists to approach the study of semiotic landscapes, particularly when tied up with musical heritage. It also extends current scholarship on Rory Gallagher whose life and work remain underresearched, despite his importance as a founding figure of Irish rock music.