How has popular music addressed complex political conflict? Dr. Sean Campbell explores how popular musicians engaged with the Northern Ireland conflict in the period between the IRA hunger strikes (1980-81) and the British Government’s ‘broadcasting ban’ (1988).

During this period, popular music became a site of contestation regarding perceptions of the ‘Troubles’, with numerous bands issuing overt and oppositional commentary on the conflict via song lyrics and other rhetorical techniques. Drawing on original interviews with the musicians, as well as extensive trawling of print and audio/visual archives, Sean explores these interventions as forms of political communication.

Dr. Sean Campbell is an Associate Professor of Media and Culture at Anglia Ruskin University, and Co-Convenor of Modern Irish History Seminar at University of Cambridge. Sean is the author of ‘Irish Blood, English Heart’: Second-Generation Irish Musicians in England (Cork University Press, 2011), which was named ‘Music Book of the Year’ in the Sunday Times and Hot Press magazine. The book was adapted into a six-part documentary series for Irish television (Guth: Musical Sons of the Irish Diaspora, TG4, 2013) on which Sean was Series Adviser and onscreen contributor. He is currently writing a book on popular music and political conflict, provisionally entitled Combat Rock. Sean is co-founder, and co-convenor, of the Modern Irish History seminar at the University of Cambridge (2012-present).