¿A qué cielo de tambores Y siestas largas se han ido? Se los ha llevado el tiempo, El tiempo que es el olvido. Jorge Luis Borges, 'Milonga de los morenos' (Para las seis cuerdas, 1965) Abstract Why does traditional Irish music not integrate into the cultural world of Latin American and Caribbean countries? With a remote origin in Ireland and a creative flourishing in the United States, traditional Irish music made a late arrival in Latin America in the 1980s, together with the pub business and

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... he marketing-orientated celebrations of St. Patrick's Day. Irish music represented a weak competitor to the luxuriant folkloric genres of the region, which amalgamated African, Amerindian, European and Arabic rhythms, melodies, and instruments. A few Irish-Latin Americans contributed to Latin American music as composers, songwriters , singers and dancers. Furthermore, there are some sources that point to the playing of Irish music in the Argentine pampas in the 1870s. A collection of ballads published by anonymous readers of a rural newspaper in Buenos Aires is an example. However, most traditional Irish music in Latin America is a low-quality imitation and pales with una poca de gracia beside the flourishing Latin American musical landscape.