Country music has been popular in Ireland since the 1960s, most notably in the work of homegrown performers. Despite the durability of this appeal in the face of huge changes in Ireland and in the Irish music industry over a half-century, it remains curiously underexamined in the literature on Irish popular music. In this paper, I wish to argue the following:

1. (1) Country music did not simply arise ‘naturally’ in Ireland as a reflection of musical or national characteristics: it was promoted as such.

2. (2) Both popular and academic literature on the subject have tended to unreflectively echo the narrative that was introduced alongside the music in order to fix its audience.

3. (3) In so doing, the literature reproduces a set of anxieties about modernity as it arrived in Ireland, about the postcolonial condition and about authenticity, even as it attempts to locate Irish popular music within these concerns.

自1960年代以来，乡村音乐在爱尔兰开始流行，尤其是在本土表演者的作品中。尽管面对爱尔兰和半个世纪以来的爱尔兰音乐行业的巨大变化，这种吸引力持续存在，但奇怪的是，在爱尔兰流行音乐的文献中，对它的兴趣仍然不足。在本文中，我想提出以下观点：

1. （1）乡村音乐在爱尔兰并不是简单地“自然地”出现，以反映音乐或民族特征：它是这样推广的。

2. （2）关于该主题的大众文学和学术文学都倾向于不加思索地呼应与音乐一同引入的叙述，以固定听众。

3. （3）在这样做的过程中，文学作品重现了人们对到达爱尔兰的现代性，后殖民时期的条件和真实性的一系列焦虑，即使它试图将爱尔兰的流行音乐定位在这些关注之内。