This study considers the extent to which economic modernisation has transformed the rural community. In doing so it discusses whether the distinctive character of rural identity has been eroded by powerful and distant political and cultural forces. This is the first full-length ethnography of an Irish community for a number of years. Since the early 1980s, the anthropological analysis of community life in Ireland has been limited to brief articles whilst major community studies have been published in other European countries. The author has regularly worked in Ireland.

Once the US was the only country in the world to offer a doctorate for studio artists, however the PhD in fine art disappeared after pressures established the MFA as the terminal degree for visual artists. Subsequently, the PhD in fine art emerged in the UK and is now offered by approximately 40 universities. Today the doctorate is offered in most English-speaking nations, much of the EU, and countries such as China and Brazil. Using historical, political, and social frameworks, this book investigates the evolution of the fine art doctorate in the UK, what the concept of a PhD means to practicing artists from the US, and why this degree disappeared in the US when it is so vigorously embraced in the UK and other countries. Data collected through in-depth interviews examine the perspectives of professional artists in the US who teach graduate level fine art. These interviews disclose conflicting attitudes toward this advanced degree and reveal the possibilities and challenges of developing a potential doctorate in studio art in the US.

Whether carried by emigrants and exiles, or distributed by commercial networks, Irish traditional music is one of the most popular world music genres. Clare, at the western edge of Europe on Ireland's Atlantic seaboard, enjoys unrivalled status as a home of the music, a magnet for tourists and aficionados eager to enjoy the authentic sounds of Ireland.

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