The Same Old Theme Since 1916?

s novel Grace Notes (1997) and Jez Butterworth's play The Ferryman (2017) show music as a means of constructing identity and community during the times of the Northern Ireland conflict.Music serves as an associative enhancer of communication, playing an important role in creating, communicating, reinforcing, and transforming identities of groups and individuals.The local negotiation of identity through music is influenced by glocal dynamics relating to the global music industry.In The Ferryman, music unites characters in their shared identity while simultaneously highlighting the divisions within Northern Irish society.Traditional and Republican songs unite the fictional family depicted but foreshadow events that lead to its disintegration as past violence resurfaces.Global music genres provide a (brief) escape, but their uniting potential fails when the local conflicts intrude.Conversely, Grace Notes concludes on a hopeful note, as the protagonist's engagement with global influences provides new perspectives on and arguably for her Northern Irish community.Her symphony Vernicle envisions a hybrid and peaceful Northern Ireland and, despite causing division in her own community, illustrates the possibility of reconciliation.Both works present three effects of glocalisation: first, the gestation of new insights within local communities through an interaction with the global; second, the employment of the global as a means to transform or escape local constraints; and third, the negotiation of local identities in the context of global forces dissolving borders on the one hand, and a historical need for distinct local identities in Northern Ireland on the other hand.