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Like murals, music plays an important role in the cultural revival associated with the 1981 Hunger Strike. Historically, music has been one of the most prevalent ways that Irish Catholics have expressed and transmitted history and stories, an oral tradition that has roots to hundreds of years in the past, under a different era of British oppression. In the modern era, music has maintained this important role, both as a marker of collective cultural identity, when singing old songs, and as a continuation of the same tradition of expressing protest and sharing the stories of fallen soldiers and the trodden-down, a new and modern adaptation of this old form.
Furthermore, the knowledge of folk songs is yet another way that insular Catholic and especially republican-sympathizing communities can construct and maintain an insider / outsider dynamic. This was the case during the years of the Penal Laws and oppressive British rule in the 18th and 19th centuries, and, interestingly, continued to be the case in the North following partition in the 1920s, especially after the beginning of the Troubles and internment in the 1970s. Folk music takes on a new meaning in the twentieth century, where these types of songs are still created and certainly are still played and shared, but globalization and international popular music also have their influence on the musical culture of the country. The 1981 hunger strike, because it garnered so much support from an international community, occupies both of these spaces. It is a topic for more traditional-sounding ballads and Irish music, but also receives both explicit and implicit references in non-Irish popular music, taking on a new meaning in the process.