The Outcasts: Punk in Northern Ireland During The Troubles

Abstract

Good Vibrations is an independent movie that seeks to illustrate through the use of familiar tropes the importance of music as a transformative experience. The above trailer demonstrates the centrality of punk music as a means to change through relationships, do-it-yourself, and resistance. The movie is based on the life of Terri Hooley, specifically his role in the nascent punk scene in Belfast as something of an unlikely hero and ringmaster. In focusing on Hooley the movie serves up a number of points key to this chapter: the power of music to sidestep divisions and boundaries; how much the troubles in Northern Ireland were a background part of everyday life for most people; the ability within punk to cherry pick aspects and times and conveniently ignore or marginalise other equally important but less ‘sellable’ dimensions. This chapter will be structured to deal with each of these three areas as a means of demonstrating that Northern Ireland had one of the most vital and vibrant punk scenes in the UK at the time of the troubles. Vital in that, it was often the only space for Catholics and Protestants to mix and interact. Vibrant in that it was largely isolated from the drama and media wrangling of the mainland punk scenes and so had to form and inform itself. The chapter is based on the auto-ethnography of the author and on a sociological and religious studies research project on punk during and after the troubles.