This paper will examine the suppression and 'de-ritualisation' of the pagan practice of Irish keening (caoineadh) or ritual lamentation and its re-emergence in new musical contexts, based on the importance of keening as part of the role performance of Irish women and a central element of their culture. Key points to be addressed will include an examination of the musical and paramusical characteristics of keening; its social and religious relevance within its original pagan context; the social, political and religious circumstances surrounding its suppression and the musical and cultural contexts in which keening is now expressed. These include: current traditional folk song which encompasses laments from the Diaspora, songs of lost love, rebellion, comic keening; s顮-nos songs featuring Marian laments; popular music and ritual keening as it manifests in the present day. The musical examples chosen for discussion will be analysed using a cross-disciplinary methodology which draws on aspects of ethnomusicology, gender studies and ritual studies. This paper will show that the suppression of women's keening led to the loss of its ritual function. However, a musical analysis of examples from popular music will show that, because of the importance of the practice in the Irish female psyche, keening has found its expression in new contexts as a 'de-ritualised' musical art form, where subjects normally considered taboo can be examined without censure.