The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #168242   Message #4064725
Posted By: GUEST,matt milton
18-Jul-20 - 06:35 AM
Thread Name: Alexander Suarez Mendez, Cuban Uilleann Piper
Subject: RE: ALexander Suarez Mendez, Cuban Uilleann Piper
Are there any black Irish pipers, or indeed any black Irish traditional musicians in Ireland? just looked it up and I note that only 1.38% of Ireland's population self-identified as black in the last census (2016). The great, young London-based trad fiddler Matt Tighe is half-Trinidadian, half-Irish.

In the English traditional music scene, there is almost no racial diversity whatsoever. Well, I can only speak for London, but audiences and performers are almost exclusively white. As mentioned above, I can think of literally only one black professional performer of English trad material.

If I wanted to put on a traditional folk festival and wanted it to be diverse I would definitely have to move outside English, Irish, Scots and Welsh traditions. Nothing wrong with doing that of course, I like loads of different types of music.