In most societies, older cultural forms were slowly adapted to the new world of cities, but remained within the context of a recognisable national tradition. It was there that Sligo-born emigrants like Michael Coleman, Paddy Killoran and James Morrison developed a 20thcentury style for Irish music. That sound, in turn, shaped the traditional music revival in Ireland from the 1970s onwards. What we now regard as one of the most vibrant and distinctive aspects of Irish culture is, in other words, also deeply American. This is true, in all sorts of ways, of most contemporary art forms.
Irish movies owe far more to Hollywood than to the European cinema.
The high flyers of Irish poetry have always acknowledged the immense influence of Robert Frost and Robert Lowell, just as younger Irish novelists tend to be saturated in US fiction. The lingering impact of American abstract expressionism on Irish painting is incalculable. In some extreme cases, specific cultural forms that started out in Ireland have become arguably more American than Irish. It's not, for example, accidental that the dancers who sparked the current revival of Irish dancing, Michael Flatley and Jean Butler, are children of the Irish-American diaspora. For it has long been the case that north America had more Irish dancers, teachers and feiseanna than Ireland itself.