Plus ça change... how Irish trad has influenced the music of Quebec

The Francophone province has a proud music culture, with both fans and ethnomusicologists spotting the strong Irish links in many of the tunes 

Quebec folkloric group, La Bottine Souriante. (Photo by Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images)

As Québec’s La Bottine Souriante launch, all saxophone and brass blazing, into their raucous rendition of ‘À Travers La Vitre’, anyone familiar with Irish traditional music may experience a strong sense of déjà entendu.

Similarities with the music of Québec are hardly unexpected, given centuries of Irish immigration, but so deeply embedded is Irish traditional music in the Canadian province’s psyche that its subliminal influence can go unnoticed even by musicians themselves.