The last two decades have been in Ireland a period of strong economic growth, followed by an equally strong recession, and the concrete results are easily visible in the towns and cities across the country, and arguably also on people's faces. The evolution of social behaviours, possibly less visible, is equally marked. As such, one of the most common expressions heard from commentators or journalists, but also from scholars, is that Ireland is "between tradition and modernity." 1 One should first note that the expression, generally intended as a kindly comment, is not limited to the various forms of cultural expressions such as music, cinema or painting but can equally be extended to fields as diverse as religion or cooking, and can even be applied to economic or social areas. Second point, this cliché would seem to conjure up the unstable balance of the country in its present state, thereby indicating the imminent possibility of a traditionalist relapse. Indeed, in the eyes of these commentators, the phrase denotes primarily a tradition rooted in the past, with an indefinable purity and endogeneity. Conversely, modernity for them points to the future and to an exogenous character. We are here at the heart of a conflict between two forces occupying both space and time. But these two concepts of tradition and modernity, however, are most often used in vague, simplistic and potentially misleading ways. Considered strictly from our cultural perspective, they may however be defined with a few specific traits: Regarded as essentially rural in its origin, cultural tradition is supposed to be marked primarily by a sharp conservatism, a strong fragmentation, as well as an elitism based on (what is now termed) cultural consumption and the monopoly of cultural expression.

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