Introducing this scholarly work, David Cooper notes that, despite the success of the peace process, Northern Ireland remains ‘a divided country in which traditional culture … is still widely used as a marker of religious affiliation and ethnic identity’ (p. 1) and that music is one way in which these separate identities are maintained. Cooper's book explores how such musical identities are delineated, while at the same time arguing that the region's rich musical heritage is heterogeneous and, at source, non-sectarian. Initially, the book's title is puzzling, given its focus on Protestant traditions. It becomes apparent, however, that the author's strategy is to emphasise connections between these musical traditions and the better known Catholic repertoire, in the service of a broader argument that the region's traditional music ‘interweaves the ethnic, political and religious divides’ (p. 160).

Born in 1956, David Cooper grew up in Protestant North Belfast near the notorious ‘Murder Mile’ and visited relatives in the peaceful Antrim countryside. As an account of the musical traditions of Northern Ireland, Cooper's attempt to ‘steer a course between the Scylla and Charybdis of loyalism and nationalism’ (p. 4) is necessarily partial, but in a particularly fruitful way. Early in his reinterpretation of the geographical, historical and social construction of Northern Ireland, Cooper deftly skewers what he calls the ‘bipolar model of ethnicity’ so often used to explain conflict in Northern Ireland, in which ‘aboriginal Catholic Gaelic-speaking Celts are pitted against planted Protestant Anglophone Anglo-Saxons’. Against the notion of a ‘pure Celtic race’ and its Sassenach Other, he posits the genetic, linguistic and cultural heterogeneity of the region's people (p. 10). He also argues that the diversity among Protestants has seen them as divided among themselves as from the mass of Catholics: for example, both Presbyterians and Catholics were subject to religious persecution, unlike members of the official Church of Ireland. His claim that ‘Both communities are the product of a shared history within a common geography’ (p. 26) extends to the region's music and literature, which draw on Gaelic, Scots, English and other European traditions. Without an explicit theoretical underpinning, his discussion of identity, ethnicity and cultural heterogeneity arise from his interpretations of source materials.

The second chapter focuses on Protestant song sources, traditions and ideologies, in part because they have received little scholarly attention relative to Catholic songs, but also in order to demonstrate that so-called loyalist songs draw on a shared musical and metrical vernacular. Cooper draws on diverse sources, many of which are reproduced in the book: transcribed song collections; 19th-century Ordnance Survey accounts of Presbyterian singing schools; and the repertoires of late 20th-century singers. His analysis of these texts and of contemporary commentaries leads him to conclude that Gaelic song has influenced the verse-rhythms of both Protestant and Catholic songs and that the writers of ‘Orange’ political songs frequently adopted melodies from the shared vernacular, including many tunes with strong nationalist associations.

In the third chapter, concerning regional performance practices, Cooper uses as case studies the playing and repertoires of two Antrim musicians, both born in 1906 and reaching musical maturity before the 1950's revival of Irish traditional music and, importantly, before its politicisation during the Troubles. Both musicians played music from a variety of traditions and repertoires. James Perry, a fifer, fiddler and flautist from the ‘Ulster Scots’ heartland near Ballymena, played for Orange parades, Irish dancing and orchestral concerts, as well as Presbyterian sacred music. The better-known fiddler and singer, Joe Holmes, from a Church of Ireland family who kept a ‘céilí house’ where Travellers and other musicians joined in song and dance, was similarly diverse in his musical participation and repertoire. Both, Cooper argues, were representative of ‘a class of musicians who have been virtually ignored in the standard histories and marginalised by those on both sides of the political and religious divide’ (p. 76).

Chapter 4 focuses on the processes of collection, transcription and transmission, a strong Protestant scholarly tradition in Northern Ireland, an activity that aimed to establish connections to ‘ancient’ musical sources (that is, those which pre-dated the Reformation and the ensuing religious hostilities) and was associated with an early anti-colonial movement, which posited a shared, island-wide culture. Beginning with Bunting's work dating from 1792, Cooper analyses and compares the approach, practices and repertoires involved, concluding that the collections as a whole demonstrate ‘the extraordinary richness and heterogeneity of music in Northern Ireland that results from the interactions of people from diverse backgrounds and traditions’ (pp. 5–6). As with his arguments concerning identity and ethnicity, Cooper is abstemious with his theoretical references in framing his understanding of the processes of what he calls ‘interconnectedness’, with its implications of syncretism and transculturation. At the same time, both his analyses and his arguments are convincing. As a modern editor of George Petrie's seminal Collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland collection, Cooper has continued this tradition of promoting a non-sectarian, national music. Unlike his predecessors, however, Cooper quotes extensively from his source materials, including published collections and privately compiled tune lists.

The final chapter gives a brief account of the musical history of the Protestant Irish in America. Against those who regard Southern Appalachian music as the intact tradition of the Scots-Irish, Cooper argues that, since this population held a weak sense of ethnic identity, and the area included immigrants from many countries, it is better understood as the result of musical interactions among these groups. He goes so far as to suggest that the region's syncopated bowing style may be the result of contact with African-American fiddlers, rather than distant Scottish ancestors.

Of particular interest is Cooper's discussion of the emerging identity of ‘Ulster-Scots’, a nomenclature that gained status when the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 included, as a balancing act against the Gaelic language's significance as a cultural marker of the Catholic community, the establishment of an agency to promote Ulster-Scots language, culture and history. Cooper notes the resurgence of interest in Ulster-Scots traditional music and increased scholarly attention on the region's Protestant music, of which this book is the most extensive to date. At one point, Cooper describes the Scottish musical style as ‘rational and phlegmatic’. This is also an apt description of his own writing style. There is no doubt, however, that his heart is in every word of this groundbreaking and provocative work of scholarship.