Eamonn O'Keeffe on military music during the French Wars, 1793–1815
Monday 23rd October 2023
For the October instalment of the SAHR's series of monthly lectures, Dr Eamonn O'Keeffe gave a talk entitled 'Military Music and Society during the French Wars, 1793–1815'.
The talk took place on Tuesday 23 October at 7pm BST. A recording can be viewed on YouTube: https://youtu.be/znChmRfmads
Synopsis
The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars were experienced by the ears as much as the eyes, yet the auditory dimensions of these conflicts have received limited attention from historians. This talk explores the reach and reception of military music in wartime Britain and Ireland by drawing on a wealth of evidence from memoirs, diaries, press reports, and regimental archives. It demonstrates that military bands provided sought-after entertainment at myriad public events and staged open-air concerts for socially diverse audiences. The talk interprets martial music as a potent form of cultural propaganda: a means of encouraging patriotism and asserting the sonic supremacy of the established order in a revolutionary age. But it also shows how military music provoked irritation, controversy, and distress, not least by generating noise complaints and exacerbating sectarianism in Ireland. The talk concludes by considering the role of British regimental music in overseas colonies and foreign theatres of operations, arguing that it functioned as a form of soft power which underpinned imperial authority, aided diplomacy, and eased relations with local inhabitants. An intrusive symptom of large-scale military mobilization, martial music shaped civilian attitudes and profoundly influenced wider musical life.
Speaker Biography
Dr Eamonn O'Keeffe is the National Army Museum Junior Research Fellow at Queens' College, Cambridge. A longstanding member of SAHR Council, he completed a DPhil on British military music during the Napoleonic Wars at the University of Oxford in 2022. Eamonn’s work has recently won the André Corvisier prize, awarded by the International Commission for Military History for the best PhD thesis in the field, and the Pollard Prize, awarded by the Institute for Historical Research.