The Irish Harp

THE GUT STRUNG IRISH HARP:
The development of the harp and its players, in Ireland, from
c.1819 to the present day
Oona Linnett
Submitted in partial fulfilment

of the requirement for the degree of
Master of Arts
University of Wales, Bangor
30th September, 2003
1
SUMMARY
From the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Irish harp removed
itself from all the associations of its wire strung predecessor,
becoming transformed into a drawing room instrument for genteel
ladies, like the pedal harp on which its design was based. It came to
represent a Romantic, sentimental form of nationalism, as depicted,
for example, in Moore’s Irish Melodies. Throughout this time its
symbolic importance increased inversely to its actual usage as a
musical instrument, but it began to be promoted again as a result of a
cultural renewal at the turn of the twentieth century, being taught by
nuns and lay teachers in convent schools, for about the next 70 years.
Around the 1950s, as Ireland was undergoing social and economic

change, the tourist industry was boosted, and the Irish harp became
part of the scenario of cabarets and ‘banquets’. With the aim of
raising the status of the instrument, the organisation Cáirde Na
Cruite1 was formed in 1960, by individuals with a background
influenced by western art music.
Harp players, however, did not receive recognition by the general

body of traditional musicians until around the 1970s. At this time
Ireland was immersed in a folk music revival, and harp players were
inspired to explore the ‘traditional’ possibilities of their instruments
in terms of playing dance tunes, which have become the most
popular form of music to be played on the Irish harp today,
particularly by young people.
There are many more teachers and summer schools available

compared to 30 years ago when this form of harp playing was in its
infancy, and techniques and repertoire are being passed on. However,
while the instrument has proved its viability as a traditional
instrument, it has many years of stereotyping to overcome before it
is embraced fully in that role.
1
‘Friends of the Irish harp’.
2
CONTENTS
Page
List of accompanying material 5
Contents of audio CD 6
List of illustrations 8
Acknowledgements 10
Author’s declaration 11
Introduction 12
Preliminary notes 14
Chapter One: John Egan’s ‘Portable’ Harp 16
Chapter Two: Nationalism and Thomas Moore 20
Chapter Three: Cultural renewal 30
Chapter Four: The convent schools 38
Chapter Five: The celebrity harpists and the tourist industry 44
Chapter Six: The folk and traditional music revivals 48
Chapter Seven: Cáirde Na Cruite: the early years 53
Chapter Eight: The Irish Harp as a High Art Concert Instrument 62
Chapter Nine: The emergence of the ‘traditional’ Irish harp 74
Chapter Ten: Style and technique: Máire Ní Chathasaigh 79
3
Chapter Eleven: Style and technique: Janet Harbison 90
Chapter Twelve: The response from the established musical

organisations 97
Chapter Thirteen: A meeting of minds 104
Chapter Fourteen: Promotion by Comhaltas 111
Chapter Fifteen: How valid is the Irish harp as a traditional

instrument? 116
Conclusion 126
Appendix I: The wire strung harp 127
Appendix II: Small harp makers in the early twentieth century 136
Appendix III: The Irish harp’s contribution to

the 2003 Feis Ceoil 142
Appendix IV: Two examination systems 147
Bibliography 149
Discography 155
Videography 157
Internet websites consulted 158
4
ACCOMPANYING MATERIAL
1. Audio CD containing musical examples.
2. DVD containing two extracts from Celtic Harpestry: Live

from Lismore Castle, Ireland (Polygram Video, 1998: 440
079 319-3).
5
CONTENTS OF AUDIO CD
(denoted in the text by the symbol ♫)
(Unless otherwise stated, these examples are extracts from complete

musical items)
1. O’Hara, Mary: ‘Silent, O Moyle’

2. O’Hara, Mary: ‘Seoladh Na Ngamhna’
3. ‘The Chieftains’: ‘An Ghéagus an Grá Geal’
4. ‘The Chieftains’: ‘Boil the Breakfast Early’
5. ‘The Chieftains’: ‘Ceol Bhriotánach’
6. O’Farrell, Anne-Marie: ‘My Lagan Love’
7. O’Farrell, Anne-Marie: ‘Peter Street’
8. O’Farrell, Anne-Marie: Thomas’s Bugeilio’r Gwenith Gwyn
9. ‘Planxty’: ‘The Fisherman’s Hornpipe’
10. ‘Planxty’: ‘The Well Below the Valley’
11. Stivell, Alan: ‘Port Ui Mhuirgheasa’
12. ‘Planxty’: ‘The Humours of Ballyloughlin’ (extract 1)
13. Ní Chathasaigh, Máire: ‘The Humours of Ballyloughlin’
(extract 1)
(extract 2)
(extract 3)
16. ‘Planxty’: ‘The Humours of Ballyloughlin’ (extract 2)
(complete)
18. Ní Chathasaigh, Máire, and Newman, Chris: ‘Paddy Whack’
19. Belfast Harp Orchestra/ ‘The Chieftains’: ‘MacAllistrum’s
March’
20. Harbison, Janet: ‘Harling’s Jig’ (extract 1)
21. Harbison, Janet: ‘Harling’s Jig’ (extract 2)
22. Harbison, Janet: ‘O’Neill’s Calvacade’
23. Hambly, Gráinne: ‘The Rectory Reel’
6
24. Hambly, Gráinne: ‘Martin Hardiman’s’
25. Hambly, Gráinne: ‘Celia Connellan’
26. Ní Bheaglaoich, Seosaimhín and Harbison, Janet: ‘Bean
Dubh an Ghleanna’
27. Comhaltas Tour Group: ‘The Steeplechase’
28. Hambly, Róisín: ‘The Gold Ring’
29. McCarton, Fearghal: The Mason’s Apron (complete)
7
ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure 1: The ‘Portable’ harp by John Egan, dated 1819.

Figure 2: Extract from Moore’s ‘Silent, O Moyle! Be the roar of thy
water’.
Figure 3: Daniel Maclise’s illustration for ‘The Harp that Once
through Tara’s Halls’, from Moore’s Irish Melodies, 1846 edition.
Figure 4: Daniel Maclise’s illustration for ‘Erin, the Tear and the
Smile in Thine Eyes’, from Moore’s Irish melodies, 1846 edition.
Figure 5: Daniel Maclise’s illustration for ‘The Minstrel Boy’, from
Moore’s Irish Melodies, 1846 edition.
Figure 6: The melody of Moore’s ‘Come, Rest in this Bosom’,
arranged by Mother Attracta Coffey.
Figure 7: Moore’s ‘Come, Rest in this Bosom’.
Figure 8: Prize winners in the Feis Ceoil in the small Irish harp
category, from 1900 to 1911.
Figure 9: ‘Study No. 1’ from Larchet-Cuthbert’s The Irish Harp
Book.
Figure 10: ‘Family tree’ of harp teachers at Loreto Abbey and Sion
Hill convent schools, and their ‘descendants’.
Figure 11: Mary O’Hara in 1954.
Figure 12: Arr. McGrath: ‘The Parting of Friends’.
Figure 13: Arr. Larchet Cuthbert: ‘Carolan’s Farewell to Music’.
Figure 14: Bodley: ‘Duet Scintillae’ (extract).
Figure 15: T. C. Kelly: ‘Interlude’ (extract).
Figure 16: O’Farrell: Prelude for Irish Harp (extract).
Figure 17: Thomas: Bugeilio’r Gwenith Gwyn (extract).
Figure 18: Godefroid: Etude de Concert (extract).
Figure 19: Harp by Daniel Quinn of Dublin.
Figure 20: Transcription of the first section of ‘The Humours of
Ballyloughlin’, played by piper Liam O’Flynn.
Ballyloughlin’, played by Máire Ní Chathasaigh.
8
Figure 22: Transcription of Máire Ní Chathasaigh’s performance of
the repeat of the first section of ‘The Humours of Ballyloughlin’,
with variations indicated.
Figure 23: Arr. Ní Chathasaigh: ‘The Pullet’ (extract), with her
suggested accented notes indicated.
Figure 24: Arr. Ní Chathasaigh: ‘Walsh’s Hornpipe’
Figure 25: Arr. Ní Chathasaigh: Carolan’s ‘Eleanor Plunkett’
Figure 26: Classical technique hand and finger position.
Figure 27: Harbison’s alternative hand and finger position for
playing traditional music.
Figure 28: Harbison’s playing of ‘Harling’s Jig’ (extract).
Figure 29: Maps indicating the numbers of centres for Irish harp
tuition in 1986, compared to today.
Figure 30 : Photograph in ‘Brú Ború’’s promotional leaflet.
Figure 31: Picture from ‘Brú Ború’’s promotional leaflet.
Figure 32: Photograph from the front of the Comhaltas tour (2000)
cassette tape.
Figure 33: ‘Father Dollard’s Favorite’.
Figure 34: Arr. Kim Fleming: ‘Garret Barry’s Jig’.
Figure 35: Trinity College Harp, fourteenth century (small, low-
headed)
Figure 36: Otway Harp, seventeenth century (large, low-headed)
Figure 37: O’Neill Harp, eighteenth century (large, high-headed)
Figure 38: Advertisement by McFall, 1904
Figure 39: McFall ‘Tara Harp’, dated 1902
Figure 40: Clark’s ‘Irish Harp’, early twentieth century
Figure 41: Arr. Ní Chathasaigh: Carolan’s ‘Lord Inchiquin’.
Figure 42: Arr. Calthorpe: ‘Túirne Mháire’.
9
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Acknowledgements are made to the following:
The Irish Traditional Music Archive
The National Library of Ireland
For interviews:
Máire Ní Chathasaigh, Gráinne Yeats, Anne-Marie O’Farrell, Aibhlín
McCrann, Aine Ní Dhuill, Cormac de Barra, Kathleen Loughnane,
Tracey Fleming, Sheila Larchet-Cuthbert, Janet Harbison, Kim
Fleming, Fionnuala Rooney, Séamus MacMathuna, Fearghal
McCarton, Sister Carmel Warde, Colm O’Meachair, Patricia Daly.
The Royal Irish Academy of Music, for their examination syllabus.
The Feis Ceoil Association, for the copy of the 2003 festival
programme.
Simon Chadwick, for the copy of James MacFall’s advertisement.
Sister Carmel Warde, for the photograph of Mary O’Hara, from Sion
Hill School’s archives.
Cormac Bowell, for Irish translations.
10
AUTHOR’S DECLARATION
DECLARATION
This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any
degree and is not being concurrently submitted in candidature for
any degree.
Signed………………………………………………………………
Date…………………………………………………………………
STATEMENT 1
This dissertation is being submitted in partial fulfilment of the

requirements for the degree of Master of Arts.
………………………………………………………………………
Signed………………………………………………………………..
Date…………………………………………………………………..
STATEMENT 2
This dissertation is the result of my own independent

work/investigation, except where otherwise stated. Other sources
are acknowledged by footnotes giving explicit references. A
bibliography is appended.
Signed……………………………………………………………….
Date………………………………………………………………….
STATEMENT 3
I hereby give consent for my dissertation, if accepted, to be available

for photocopying and for inter-library loan, and for the title and
summary to be made available to outside organisations.
Signed………………………………………………………………
Date…………………………………………………………………
11
INTRODUCTION
In 1999 Máire Ní Chathasaigh wrote of the Irish harp:
No other instrument symbolises both the continuities

and discontinuities of the Irish music tradition so
thoroughly. It is the oldest instrument within it,
having been played here for more than a thousand
years, and therefore the one which appears to have
changed the most.2
Although there were some changes in size and shape between the
tenth and eighteenth centuries (see Appendix I), by far the most
dramatic change in the history of the Irish harp occurred in the early
nineteenth century. Until then the instrument was wire strung, played
with the fingernails3 with a complex regime of damping, and rested
on the left shoulder. The strings were tuned diatonically, but were not
equally tempered. Until the seventeenth century, it was an
aristocratic, male dominated tradition, the harper commanding a
privileged place in Gaelic society.
This study concerns the development of the modern, gut or nylon

strung Irish harp, which shares none of the above features.4 The
circumstances surrounding its birth at the beginning of the nineteenth
century will be explored, as will the aspects of political and social
change in Ireland during this time that were linked to its
development. The changed role of the instrument will be examined,
and the writer will consider the effect of the cultural renewal in
Ireland at the turn of the twentieth century.
The study will then focus on the role of convent schools in

promoting of the instrument in the first half of the century, the
‘celebrity’ harpists produced by these schools in the 1950s and the
subsequent establishment of Cáirde Na Cruite which aimed to raise
2
Ní Chathasaigh, Máire: Ed.Vallely, Fintan: ‘Harp’, The Companion to Irish
Traditional Music, (Cork, 1999), 173.
3
This practice began to die out in the seventeenth century.
4
A brief account is given in Appendix I of the decline of the wire strung harp and
the efforts of individuals to revive and preserve it.
12
the cultural status of the instrument and its player. The influence of
the general traditional music revival which began in the 1960s will
be explored, and how it led to a dramatic change in the repertoire
and image of the Irish harp player from the 1970s onwards. Present
day trends will be examined in detail, and finally the writer will
consider the instrument’s position within Irish traditional music as a
whole.
13
PRELIMINARY NOTES
For the evaluation of the Irish harp’s current status, fieldwork was
undertaken as follows:
-Participation in workshop given by Máire Ní Chathasaigh at

Chethams School, Manchester (16th February, 2003)
-Telephone interview with Sr. Carmel Warde, Sion Hill Convent (19th
April, 2003).
-Observation and filming of workshop given by Janet Harbison at

her Harp Centre in Limerick (23rd April 2003).
-Attendance at Granard Harp Festival (Co. Longford):

Participation in workshop.
Filmed interview with Kim Fleming (24th April 2003).
-Attendance as a ‘listener’ at the Cáirde Na Cruite Harp Festival,

Termonfeckin, Co. Louth (29th June-4th July, 2003):
Observation of classes and workshops.
Informal conversations with participants.
Recorded interview with one participant.
Recorded interviews with the following teachers: Máire Ní
Chathasaigh, Gráinne Yeats, Anne-Marie O’Farrell, Aibhlín
McCrann, Aine Ní Dhuill, Cormac de Barra, Kathleen Loughnane,
Tracey Fleming. Unrecorded interview with Sheila Larchet-Cuthbert.
Note: the writer was not permitted to film or record any of the
workshops or concerts during this course.
-Visit to the workshop of Colm O’Meachair. Unrecorded interview

(4th July, 2003).
14
-Attendance at Ulster Fleadh, Warrenpoint (26th-27th July, 2003):
Observation of Irish harp competitions.
Observation of the Irish harp in the pub session situation.
Recorded interview with Fionnuala Rooney.
-Recorded interview with Patricia Daly (28th July, 2003).
-Recorded interview with Janet Harbison (31st July, 2003).
-Attendance at Traditional Music Festival, Thomastown, Co.

Kilkenny (1st August, 2003).
-Recorded interview with Séamus Mac Mathuna (8th August, 2003).
Unless otherwise stated, all quotations in the dissertation originate

from the writer’s recorded interviews while undertaking the above
fieldwork.
15
CHAPTER ONE
John Egan’s ‘Portable’ Harp
John Egan was a successful Dublin instrument maker who

manufactured harps between about 1800 to 1840.5 Initially he
specialised in single-action pedal harps, as well as the small wire
strung models which were supplied to the second Belfast Harp
Society (see Appendix I).6 In London in 1810, the French
manufacturer Sebastian Erard marketed the first double-action pedal
harp. In a probable attempt to compete with Erard’s revolutionary
design, in 1819 Egan produced his ‘Portable’ harp and offered it to
customers who purchased the full-sized instrument (see figure 17).8
Designed to be played by pedal harpists, it had similar string tension
and spacing, and required the same playing technique with the
‘thumbs up, fingers down’ hand positioning. The ‘Portable’ harp
was about three feet high, gut strung, and also similar to the pedal
harp in the shape of the neck and soundbox, which was made from
two pieces of wood, with a rounded back and flat soundboard. The
forepillar was not straight like the pedal harp, however, but was
made with varying degrees of curvature, imitating the wire strung
instrument.
Egan made over 2,000 ‘Portable’ harps, supplying them with black,
blue or green paint finishes, often decorated with gold shamrocks. A
stabilising rod was incorporated inside the bottom of the soundbox,
which pulled out to raise the instrument to an appropriate playing
position. Like the single-action pedal harp, it was tuned in the key of
E flat. The model currently in the possession of the Historical Harp
Society which has recently undergone a cosmetic restoration and is
housed at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has 32 strings, from E
5
Hayward, Richard: The Story of the Irish Harp, (Dublin, 1954).
6
Armstrong, Robert Bruce: The Irish and Highland Harps (Edinburgh, 1904), 105.
7
Photograph from Rimmer, Joan: The Irish Harp, (Dublin, 1977), 69.
8
Taylor, William: Traditional and Historical Scottish Harps,
www.clarsach.net/Bill_Taylor/traditional.htm, consulted on 15.09.03.
16
Figure 1: The ‘Portable’ harp by John Egan, dated 1819
17
flat two octaves below middle C, to A flat three octaves above. Most
of the harps had seven levers set into the forepillar, called ‘ditals’.
They were connected to rods inside the forepillar, and when one of
them was depressed it operated in a similar way to a pedal on a
single-action harp, resulting in a change of key due to the rod
turning small forked discs on the neck, next to the corresponding
strings.9
After George IV’s visit to Ireland in 1821, Egan obtained the royal
warrant and his harp became the ‘Royal Portable’. He was then able
to advertise in 1922 as ‘Portable Harp maker to the King’.10 The
instruments were mostly designed and marketed with the cultured
but amateur nineteenth-century drawing-room in mind. Thomas
Moore (see below) is believed to have owned one of these harps and
to have used it to accompany himself in the performance of his Irish
Melodies.11 In 1805 Lady Morgan12 purchased an Egan harp, but it is
unclear whether it was wire strung or an early, experimental form of
his ‘Portable’ harp13. She led a movement to make the Irish harp
fashionable, especially the latter gut-strung version, which Egan
supplied to many titled ladies, until about 1835. One of these ladies,
the Marchioness of Abercorn, enthused, albeit rather patronisingly,
in a letter to Lady Morgan:
Your harp is arrived, and, for the honour of Ireland, I

must tell you, it is very much admired and quite
beautiful. Lady Aberdeen played on it for an hour,
and thought it very good, almost as good as a French
harp14…Pray tell poor Egan I shall show it off to the
9
Sources of information concerning Egan’s ‘Portable’ harp in Hurrell, Nancy: ‘A
Harp from 19th Century Ireland: The Royal Portable Harp by John Egan’, Folk
Harp Journal, No. 119, (Walton Creek, Spring, 2003), 52, and in Hayward,
Richard: The Story of the Irish Harp, (Dublin, 1954). Hayward owned one of these
harps, using it in his lectures in the 1950s.
10
Hurrell, Nancy: ‘A Harp from 19th Century Ireland: The Royal Portable Harp by
John Egan’, Folk Harp Journal, No. 119, (Walton Creek, Spring 2003), 52.
11
Maher, Tom: The Harp’s a Wonder, (Mullingar, 1991), 96.
12
Lady Morgan: a novelist, who also published a small collection of Irish airs in
1806 (Flood, W. H. Grattan: The Story of the Harp (London, 1905), 148).
13
Ibid, 148.
14
Possibly a reference to Erard’s pedal harp.
18
best advantage, and I sincerely hope he will have
many orders in consequence.15
Though a passing fashion, great importance is however attributed to

the ‘Portable’ harp in this study. The modern folk harp played today,
both in Ireland and Scotland, evolved from Egan’s design.
15
Flood, W. H. Grattan: The Story of the Harp (London, 1905), 151.
19
CHAPTER TWO
Nationalism and Thomas Moore
The political history of the Irish harp has…been

conflated with its musical history and the harp
limited to playing a silent role as a dominant symbol
within nationalism. This has resulted in the loss of
its own particular historical musical voice.16
In 1791 a nationalist political movement based in Belfast was

established: the Society of United Irishmen. Members were wealthy
Ulster Presbyterians who had been, like Catholics, subject to the
penal laws and excluded from public life. Although this law was
changed in 1780 as far as Protestant dissenters were concerned,
much anger and resentment remained due to what they considered to
be the injustices on which the whole system of the Protestant
ascendancy was built. Their radical aim was to unite with
mainstream Protestants, and indeed Catholics, to overthrow the
Anglican ascendancy and create a united Ireland, independent from
Britain.17 The Society, which had some connections with the Belfast
Society for Promoting Knowledge (see Appendix 1), used the arts
and the growing antiquarian interest in Ireland’s past, as a means of
effecting social and political change, and its ethos, as a result,
became imbued with a cultural nationalism. It adopted the harp,
which it perceived as representing a golden age prior to English
rule, as its insignia, with the motto ‘It is new-strung and shall be
heard’.18
The Society was quashed when its more militant faction attempted
to overthrow British rule in 1798. The movement failed to gain the
support of the Protestant majority, even the less wealthy, for whom
16
Lanier, S. C.: ‘ “It is new-strung and shan’t be heard”: nationalism and memory
in the Irish harp tradition’, British Journal of Ethnomusicology, vol. 8, (Milton
Keynes, 2000), 21.
17
Beckett, J. C.: A Short History of Ireland, 7th ed., (London, 1986), 95-117.
18
Boydell, Barra: ‘The Female Harp: The Irish Harp in 18th- and Early- 19th-
Century Romantic Nationalism’, RidIM/RCMI Newsletter XX/1 (National
University of Ireland, Maynooth College, Spring 1995), 11.
20
difference in religion was a greater issue than social injustice. In
1801 Westminster passed the ‘Act of Union’, uniting the British and
Irish parliaments and making the link between the two countries
stronger than ever. A new kind of nationalism emerged in the
nineteenth century, this time basically Catholic in nature. This was
instigated by Daniel O’Connell, who in 1829 was instrumental in
bringing about ‘Catholic emancipation’. Catholics were now
allowed to vote and have seats in parliament. However, injustices
were still perceived, for instance in land ownership and in the fact
that the Catholic peasantry was still forced to pay tithes to the
Anglican Church. After an unsuccessful repeal of the union in the
1840s the militant Young Ireland movement emerged to challenge
these issues. From then to the present, nationalism in Ireland has
been strongly associated with Catholicism.19
How did these events affect music in Ireland in the early nineteenth
century, the harp in particular? The interest in Irish antiquarianism
still persisted, but the cultural nationalism of the late eighteenth
century did not. This may account partly for the difficulty in funding
the harp societies. In other words, Protestants may have perceived
them to be representative of an alien and Catholic form of
nationalism. This situation has a parallel in the present day,
illustrated by the recent difficulty in the funding of the Belfast Harp
Orchestra.20 One of the main aims of its founder, Janet Harbison,
was to bring together the two communities to celebrate what is
essentially a shared heritage. However, the general perception is still
that Irish culture (music, language, literature and art) is inextricably
linked with Catholicism.
Furthermore, two distinct musical traditions existed in Ireland in the

nineteenth century: rural and urban. The rural, native Irish tradition
comprised mainly of Gaelic song, fiddle and pipe music. On the
other hand there was the sophisticated tradition of the mainly urban
19
Ibid, 119-131.
20
http://www.belfastharps.com/janetharbison/biographical.htm, consulted on
10.04.03.
21
Anglo-Irish, who favoured art music imported from the European
mainland.21 Public concerts featured some well-known virtuosi, for
example Paganini, who performed in Dublin and Belfast in 1831.22
The influence of visiting pedal harpists, such as Bochsa and Labarre
(1821 and 1829 respectively),23 no doubt contributed to the
increasing popularity of that instrument, along with the piano, for
drawing-room entertainment.
The middle and upper classes also professed an interest in folk

music. This interest was of an antiquarian kind and gave rise to
several volumes of collections throughout the century. One of these
was Edward Bunting (1773-1843) (see Appendix I), and two other
important figures were George Petrie (1789-1866) and P. W. Joyce
(1827-1914).24 However, the music they collected would have been
considered too raw and naïve in its natural form for the polite and
cultivated Anglo-Irish drawing room. Modal tunes were forced into
the major and minor tonality of Western art music, with often
unsympathetic and elaborate piano arrangements, and what emerged
has often been criticised as an artificial, sanitised version of the
native music.25
The poet Thomas Moore (1779-1852) used these often inaccurate

transcriptions for his own verses (Irish Melodies, 1808-1834),
borrowing extensively from Bunting. The ten volumes of his songs
attained great popularity throughout the nineteenth century, in
Ireland and England. The music was arranged by the fashionable
composer John Stevenson (1762-1833), but suffered considerable
condemnation for its elaborate and chromatic treatment. The
contemporary critic Gamble remarked, on the arrangements of both
Stevenson and Bunting:
21
Doris, Cliona: The Irish Harp Tradition, 1792-1903: Revival and Preservation
(D.Mus. dissertation, Indiana University School of Music, Bloomington, 1997).
22
Hogan, Ita: Anglo-Irish Music, 1780-1830, (Cork, 1966), 223.
23
Ibid, 218, 221.
24
O’Boyle, Sean: The Irish Song Tradition, (Sherries, 1976), 12.
25
Ibid, 13.
22
They have both built on an entirely wrong
foundation. It is wonderful indeed how any men who
have hearts in their bosoms should be so far misled
by the ear as not to perceive that native Irish music
would lose its charm the instant that it was shackled
by the symphony and accompaniment of modern art.
It is like taking the lark from the forest and bidding
it pour forth its ‘wood notes wild’ in a cage.26
For example, note the chromatic piano introduction to Moore’s

‘Silent, O Moyle! Be the roar of thy water’, and the use of the
sharpened seventh in the melody which was probably absent in the
original, which was likely to have been modal (see figure 2 27).28
An alternative view of Moore is held by Janet Harbison, who asserts

that the description of this invented kind of parlour music as a ‘folk’
or ‘traditional’ genre in its own right, is quite valid. In criticism of
Breandán Breathnach’s view in Folk Music and Dances of Ireland,29
she comments:
Breathnach’s definition of ‘folk’ is apparently

limited to the labouring native classes, as he
obviously considers any aspect of music…associated
with the aristocracy to be unacceptable. In this
regard, I pose the question: despite the often
aristocratic origins of a tradition, does it only qualify
as ‘folk’ when it has filtered through the social
classes to the lowest orders? It seems that the
spokespeople for Irish music are class restrictive.30
26
Gamble: Society and Manners in the North of Ireland, quoted in Hogan, Ita:
Anglo-Irish Music, 1780-1830, (Cork, 1966), 95. Hogan does not provide the date
of the quotation.
27
Extract from Ed. Glover, J. W.: Moore’s Irish Melodies, (Dublin, 1859), 92-93.
28
Ciarán Carson quotes Percy Granger, who collected folk songs in England at the
turn of the twentieth century, and found that singers used ‘one single loosely-knit
modal folk-song scale’, in which the third and seventh intervals were ‘mutable and
vague’. Carson notes: ‘This applies equally well to Irish singing’ (Carson, Ciarán:
Pocket Guide to Irish Traditional Music (Belfast, 1986), 61).
29
Breathnach, Breandán: Folk Music and Dances of Ireland, (Dublin, 1971).
30
Harbison, Janet: ‘Harpists, Harpers or Harpees?’, Crosbhealach An Cheoil:
Tradition and Change in Irish Traditional Music, a paper presented at the
Crossroads Conference, 1996, Coleraine University.
23
Figure 2: Extract from Moore’s ‘Silent O Moyle! Be the Roar of thy
Water’
24
Harbison has accompanied the tenor James W. Flannery on the Irish
harp, in a recent recording of a selection of Moore’s Irish Melodies.31
Moore’s verses were of a sentimental, nostalgic nature, in keeping

with the Anglo-Irish disposition, of which a self-indulgent
languishing in a ‘Celtic’ golden age was a characteristic feature, in
an idealised version of actual history. As Walter Scott did for
Scotland, Moore made Ireland romantic, and on one level the songs
are also patriotic. His use of the harp as a symbol, either to represent
Ireland itself or Ireland’s ‘glorious’ past prior to England’s rule, is
very common. The following stanza, for instance, is well-known:
The harp that once through Tara’s halls

The soul of music shed,
Now hangs as mute on Tara’s walls,
As if that soul were fled.
So sleeps the pride of former lays,
So glory’s thrill is o’er,
And hearts, that once beat high for praise,
Now feel that pulse no more.32
Moore produced an illustrated version of his Irish Melodies in 1846,

with engravings by the artist Daniel Maclise.33 The artwork is
flowery and ornate, with much symbolic use of the harp. For
instance in ‘The Harp that Once through Tara’s Halls’ a bard is
depicted in an idyllic ‘Celtic’ setting (figure 334). ‘Erin, the Tear and
the Smile in Thine Eyes’, is illustrated with another common
nineteenth-century image, the Maid of Erin, languishing sadly over
her harp. The instrument is in chains, representing Ireland under
foreign domination (figure 435). In the illustration that accompanies
31
Flannery, James W. and Harbison, Janet: Dear Harp of my Country; the Irish
Melodies of Thomas Moore, (ESS.A.Y Recordings, CD1057/58).
32
Ed. J.W. Glover: Moore’s Irish Melodies, (Dublin, 1859), 21-2.
33
Boydell, Barra: ‘The Female Harp: The Irish Harp in 18th- and Early 19th-Century
Romantic Nationalism’, RidIM/RCMI Newsletter XX/1, (National University of
Ireland, Maynooth College, Spring 1995).
34
Illustration from Moore, Thomas: Irish Melodies, illustrated by D. Maclise, ‘New
Edition’, (London, 1866), 13.
35
Ibid, 5.
25
Figure 3: Daniel Maclise’s illustration for ‘The Harp that Once
through Tara’s Hall’, from Moore’s Irish Melodies, 1846 edition
26
Figure 4: Daniel Maclise’s illustration for ‘Erin, the Tear and the
Smile in Thine Eyes’, from Moore’s Irish Melodies, 1846 edition
27
‘The Minstrel Boy’, a battle is depicted, the boy clutching a harp
with broken strings (figure 536). There are many more examples with
similar imagery.
Moore’s popularity with the Anglo-Irish, given the nationalist

content of his songs and the fact that he himself was a Catholic,
seems somewhat paradoxical in the light of the political situation
described above. It must be emphasised, however, that the
nationalism was of a completely different character to that of either
the United Irishmen or the Young Irelanders. A third, romantic,
sentimental form of nationalism was emerging, acceptable to the
polite tastes of the drawing-room. There was nothing in Moore’s
verses to threaten the status quo. On the contrary, quite the opposite
occurred. Far from bolstering a Catholic nationalist cause, his Irish
Melodies, due to their popularity with the English and Anglo-Irish,
were (and still are) associated by many with colonial oppression.37
Whatever the musical, ethical or political judgements of Moore’s

Irish Melodies, they are highly relevant to the study of the Irish harp.
Although the instrument had a small role in the nineteenth century in
terms of its actual use, Moore succeeded in raising it to iconic status
through its romantic portrayal in his publications. This sentimental,
nostalgic and often feminine image of the Irish harp persisted well
into the twentieth century. The instrument was certainly kept in high
profile in people’s minds at least. Whether or not the nature of this
profile is helpful to modern-day performers of the instrument is
another issue, which will be addressed later in the dissertation.
36
Ibid, 100.
37
See Flannery, James W: ‘Dear Harp of My Country’: The Irish Melodies of
Thomas Moore (Nashville, 1997).
28
Figure 5: Daniel Maclise’s illustration for ‘The Minstrel Boy’, from
Moore’s Irish Melodies, 1846 edition
29
CHAPTER THREE
Cultural renewal
The famine in Ireland reached its height between 1845 and 1849. It
had a devastating effect on all aspects of Irish society, especially
rural. Two and a half million people were lost to starvation, disease
or emigration during this period, and in the next decade the
emigration figures rose to almost thirty percent.38 In the 1890s, when
the country finally began the long process of recovery, a cultural
renaissance was born. The Gaelic League was established by
Douglas Hyde and Eoin McNeill in 1893, and aimed to promote the
Irish language as well as instrumental music, song and dance, and in
1903 the Irish Folk Song Society was formed. In the first two
decades of the twentieth century several scholarly works raising the
awareness of the Irish harp were published, specifically Armstrong’s
The Irish and Highland Harps (1904), Flood’s The Story of the Harp
(1905), Milligan Fox’s Annals of the Irish Harpers (1911) and
O’Neill’s Irish Minstrels and Musicians (1913). What characterised
these works was a move away from the sentimental and romantic
portrayal of Irish music (the harp in particular) in the nineteenth
century, to scholarship of a more serious and substantial nature.
The Gaelic League established the Oireachtas39 in Dublin in 1897.

The programme for the first of these festivals consisted of
competitions (mostly of a literary nature) interspersed with musical
items on the pipes and the Irish harp. The four harp solos are listed
as ‘selected’ melodies, performed by Mrs. Kenny, Fantasia on Irish
Airs, ‘especially written for the Oireachtas’, performed by Mr. Owen
Lloyd, Love in Secret from the Bunting collection and The Kissing
Match (a Munster jig), again by Mrs. Kenny, and finally, Brian
38
Ó hAllmhuráin, Gearóid: A Pocket History of Irish Traditional Music, (Dublin,
1998), 83-84.
39
‘Irish literary festival’
30
Boroihme’s March, ‘illustrating the advance and retirement of a troop
of warriors’,40 played by Mr. Owen Lloyd.41
In 1903 the cultural revival was also felt in Belfast. Members of the
Linen Hall Library, the venue of the Harp Festival of 1792, were
prompted to organise a centenary celebration, which was actually
held on a date to mark the library’s move to new premises.
Memorabilia of the 1792 festival were on display, including the
harps of O’Neill and Hempson, and there was also an exhibition of
harps by the contemporary Belfast maker, James McFall (see
Appendix II). Each evening for a week concerts were given, and
although well attended, only six harpists performed. They were
Owen Lloyd (one of the performers at the first Oireachtas described
above), Malachy McFall, the Misses Davis, Kerin and Maguire, and
Mrs. Toner.42 The writer has been unable to find information
concerning their repertoire.
In 1897 the Feis Ceoil (‘music festival’, modelled on the Welsh

Eisteddfod) was founded by Dr A. W. Patterson,43 to promote and
foster both art and traditional music. From the beginning
competitions have been held for pedal harp. The early programmes
list test pieces for the instrument, such as Autumn, by John Thomas.
The first Feis Ceoil included a ‘special prize’ for the ‘performance of
old Irish airs on the harp’, but the kind of harp used was not
specified. An interesting class was offered, during the first year, in
the section for ‘Competitions of Archeological Interest’: a class for
‘the Irish Wire Strung Harp, any size’. Prizewinners’ names for each
competition were always published in the following year’s
programme, but in this case no prize-winner is mentioned,
presumably either because there were no entries or because the
standard was not high enough to merit a prize. In any event, the class
was not offered again.
40
Probably Brian Ború’s March, from the Bunting collection.
41
Programme for the Oireachtas, or Irish Literary Festival, held in the Round
Room, Rotunda, Dublin, on Monday 17th May, 1897.
42
Magee, John: The Heritage of the Harp, (Belfast, 1992), 28.
43
Ibid, 81-82.
31
In the following year (1898) the ‘Small Irish Harp’ (gut-strung) is
mentioned for the first time. However, it is not until 1901 that prize-
winners are listed. At first competitors were stipulated to choose
their own pieces, which had to be ‘Irish in character’, but from 1904
requirements were more formalised. Studies and pieces were
specified from particular publications by Mother Attracta Coffey:44
27 Studies and Melodies for Irish Harp, and this was the case until at
least 1912. Flood gives an example of one of Mother Attracta’s
arrangements: a version for small harp of Moore’s song ‘Come, Rest
in this Bosom’ (see figure 645), and it is an indication of what might
have been played at the Feis Ceoil.
If this arrangement is compared to the original in Moore’s Irish

Melodies (figure 746), a good example is provided of how an Irish
harp player at this time may have adapted a melody from one of the
many nineteenth-century collections that would have been available.
Moore’s arrangement is quite sparse in texture with quite busy
continuous quavers, but the harp version’s full, lush crotchet chords,
many of which would have probably been arpeggiated in imitation of
Romantic pedal harp music, are very idiomatic to the instrument.
Also, assuming that the harp had semitone-levers (see section below
on harp makers), the two C# accidentals could be managed quite
easily.
Figure 8 shows the prize-winners in the Feis Ceoil in the small Irish
harp category, from 1900 to 1911.47 It will be noticed that one of the
44
An accomplished harpist and Mistress of Music at Loreto Abbey, Rathfarnham.
See Larchet-Cuthbert, Sheila: The Irish Harp Book, (Cork and Dublin, 1975), 239.
45
Extract from Flood, W. H. Grattan: The Story of the Harp (London, 1905), 154-
155. Sheila Larchet-Cuthbert notes in The Irish Harp Book (Cork and Dublin
1975), 239, that Mother Attracta’s melodies were also printed as piano
arrangements. Flood is likely to have obtained the extract from one of these
publications, as it states ‘Piano’ next to the stave. However, it still appears very
much to be a harp arrangement as some of the chords have too wide a spread to be
played comfortably on the piano, but would be quite possible on the harp.
46
Extract from Ed. Glover, J. W.: Moore’s Irish Melodies, (Dublin, 1859), 313-4.
47
The writer was able to gain access to the programme for the first Oireachtas and
to the programmes for the Feis Ceoil from 1897-1912. These programmes have
provided the source of all information written above, relating to these events
during this period.
32
Figure 6: The melody of Moore’s ‘Come, Rest in this Bosom’,
arranged by Mother Attracta Coffey
33
Figure 7: Moore’s ‘Come Rest in this Bosom’
34
Figure 8: Prize winners in the Feis Ceoil in the small Irish harp
category, from 1900 to 1911
35
prize-winners in 1905, Malachi McFall, also performed at the Belfast
Harp Festival two years previously. It is also interesting to note the
predominance of female names. If the wire strung tradition had been
a largely male domain, this list certainly appears to be an early
indication of the gut strung instrument’s appropriation by the female
gender. This is perhaps not surprising considering the instrument was
originally developed primarily for amateur drawing-room
entertainment and, like the pedal harp, popular with cultured ladies.
Concerning the Irish harp competitions held at the Oireachtas and

Feis Ceoil, the contemporary author Flood remarked:
…the feeling is irresistibly borne on the impartial

observer that, save as a matter of sentiment, the Irish
harp has been ousted in popular circles by the
pianoforte and violin.48
Similarly, O’Neill noted:
Accepting the decree that the piano has permanently

supplanted the harp in popular favor, the promoters
[of the revival] have wisely directed their energies in
other channels.49
Charlotte Milligan Fox noted that the turn of the century historian,
the Rev. Monsignor O’Laverty of Holywood, was a principal force
behind the making of Irish harps in Belfast at this time, and ‘boldly
advocated the introduction of the instrument into National Schools,
instead of the squeaky harmonium and tinkling pianos so often
found’.50 She continues:
Through his enterprise and advocacy, and the

support of the Gaelic League and Feis Ceoil
48
Flood, W. H. Grattan: The Story of the Harp, (London, 1905), 153.
49
O’Neill, Capt. Francis: Irish Minstrels and Musicians, (Cork and Dublin, 1987),
reprint of original 1913 edition, 476.
50
Milligan Fox, Charlotte: Annals of the Irish Harpers, (London, 1911), 59.
36
Committees, the Irish hand harp is not obsolete, and
even in London it is occasionally heard as an
accompaniment to song at the concerts of the Folk
Song and Irish Literary Societies.51
These remarks are indicative of the situation which pertained

throughout the first half of the twentieth century. The Irish harp was
being revived, in its new, gut-strung form, and was gaining
popularity (see Appendix II for a description of Irish harps being
made at that time). However, its use was still limited to a circle of
enthusiasts, whose main role was one of preservation, of saving the
harp from extinction, rather than instigating a true revival.
51
Ibid, 60.
37
CHAPTER FOUR
The Convent Schools
The cultural renewal at the turn of the century generally had a

positive impact on traditional music, albeit in urban Ireland.52
Supported by a short period of economic stability, the Gaelic League
established branches throughout the country as well as in Irish
communities in Britain. The first formalised ensembles were created,
where music was provided for Gaelic League gatherings, dance halls
and religious festivals. There were also media advances in radio,
cylinder recordings and 78 rpm records, so that musicians such as
Sligo fiddler Michael Coleman, who emigrated to New York in 1914,
often thought to be the most influential Irish musician of the
twentieth century, could reach wide audiences.53
Events in 1916 were pivotal in their influence on Irish traditional

music. The political party Sinn Féin54 launched an armed rebellion,
known as the ‘Easter Rising’, leading to the War of Independence in
1919, involving the Irish Republican Army. A truce was reached in
1921 when the Anglo-Irish treaty was signed. Under its terms,
twenty-six counties achieved independence (known as the ‘Irish Free
State’), leaving six counties in Ulster with a predominantly
Protestant population, part of the United Kingdom. A civil war
followed, resulting in great social and economic instability in much
of Ireland. This persisted for about the next 30 years, and had a
devastating effect on Irish traditional music. Firstly, many more
musicians were lost through emigration. Secondly, those people who
remained in Ireland were encouraged by Eamon de Valera,55 as a
means of surviving the poverty, not to hanker after material wealth
but
52
Ó hAllmhuráin notes that the status of traditional music in rural areas of Ireland
at this time was in decline, due to poverty and emigration (Ó hAllmhuráin,
Gearóid: A Pocket History of Irish Traditional Music, (Dublin, 1998), 97).
53
See Ó hAllmhuráin, Gearóid: A Pocket History of Irish Traditional Music,
(Dublin, 1998), 106-109.
54
This organisation, whose name literally translates as ‘ourselves alone’, opposed
Ireland’s union with Great Britain.
55
Irish political leader in power from 1932 to 1948.
38
…[be] satisfied with frugal comfort and [devote
their] leisure time to the things of the spirit.56
This puritanical notion was readily taken up and enforced by the

Catholic Church. Whether or not one considers this philosophy to be
laudible, the fact is that trying to control public morality in this way
did lead to an erosion of culture. Any form of ‘unsupervised’ dancing
was officially banned in 1935, only allowed to continue in Dance
Halls at which one was charged an entrance fee, a percentage paid to
the government. Jazz music, literature, art and modern cinema were
also subject to strict censorship.
How did the Irish harp fit into this scenario in which Irish people
were becoming increasingly ashamed of their culture, and in which
many musicians had developed a low self-image? The simple answer
lies in the fact that the instrument, due to its long association with
aristocracy and nineteenth-century drawing rooms, was not
considered a folk instrument. This perception of the Irish harp still
persists in some circles today, to the chagrin of many modern
exponents of the instrument,57 but it is this very separation from
other traditional instruments that may have ultimately saved it from
extinction in the early twentieth century.
At the turn of the century, convent schools played a leading role in

the renewed interest in Irish culture, language and heritage fostered
by the Gaelic League. The most important of these were Sion Hill
Convent and Loreto Abbey, both in Dublin, where both the Irish harp
and pedal harp were taught. It has already been noted that Mother
Attracta Coffey, mistress of music at Loreto Abbey, had an active
involvement in the syllabus for Irish harp in the Feis Ceoil, and an
example of one of her arrangements has been given (figure 6). She
also published an Irish Harp Tutor and 27 Studies, of which the latter
56
Quoted in Ó hAllmhuráin, Gearóid: A Pocket History of Irish Traditional Music,
(Dublin, 1998), 111.
57
For instance, Janet Harbison berated what she considered to be the prejudices
against the Irish harp by well-known authorities such as Sean O’Riada and
Breandán Breathnach, in ‘Harpists, Harpers or Harpees’, The Crossroads
Conference: ‘Tradition and Change in Irish Traditional Music’, Ed. Fintan,
Vallely, Hammy Hamilton, Eithne Vallely and Liz Doherty, (Dublin, 1996), 98-99.
39
include studies and exercises adapted from similar publications for
piano, for example by Czerny and Viner, or from pedal harpists such
as Naderman and Bochsa.58 In 1975 these studies were incorporated
into Larchet-Cuthbert’s The Irish Harp Book: a Tutor and
Companion. The exercise shown in figure 9 adapted from Viner,
based on scale and arpeggio patterns, is a typical example.59
From the 1920s, therefore, when Irish traditional music was sinking
into decline, the Irish harp had already had a long association with
the convent school.60 Unhindered by the Catholic Church, the
instrument continued to have great importance in these schools, for
about the next seventy years. It is remarkable to note that it would be
possible for most of the leading Irish harp players of today to trace
their ‘ancestry’ back to key figures from these two convents. The
‘family tree’ in figure 10 shows these harp teachers and their
students, all of whom are noted in this dissertation.61
At Loreto Abbey, Mother Alphonsus O’Connor succeeded Mother

Attracta, teaching both the pedal and Irish harp during the 1930s and
1940s. Her charismatic personality was described recently in a book
of reminiscences, by pianist and former pupil, Jeannie Reddin:
I still feel her spirit. She was big in stature and big in
mind. Her personality was just phenomenal and I
feel her spirit to this day.62
58
Larchet-Cuthbert, Sheila: The Irish Harp Book: a Tutor and Companion, (Cork
and Dublin, 1975), 239.
59
From Larchet-Cuthbert, Sheila: The Irish Harp Book: a Tutor and Companion,
(Cork and Dublin, 1975), 27.
60
McFall’s advertisement from the early twentieth century, shown in Appendix II,
states that his harps are ‘in use in all the leading Convents throughout the world’.
61
Máire Ní Chathasaigh is a notable exception.
Where known, dates are included in the ‘family trees’.
62
Dempsey, Anne: The Abbey:An Appreciation of Loreto Abbey, Rathfarnham,
(Dublin, 1999).
40
Figure 9: ‘Study No. 1’, from Larchet-Cuthbert’s The Irish Harp
Book
41
Loreto Abbey
Mother Attracta Coffey

( - 1920)
Mother Alphonsus O’Connor
Nancy Calthorpe Sheila Larchet-Cuthbert

(1914 - 1998)
Aibhlín McCrann Anne-Marie O’Farrell Derek Bell

(1956 - ) (1966 - ) (1935 – 2002)
Sion Hill
Mairín Ní Shé
Mary O’Hara Janet Harbison

(1935 - )
(1955 - )
Laoise Kelly Gráinne Hambly Michael Rooney

(1973 - ) (1975 - ) (1975 - )
Fionnuala Rooney Aonghus Rooney Roisín Hambly

(1980 - ) (1982 - ) (1983 - )
Figure 10: ‘Family tree’ of harp teachers (indicated in red) at Loreto

Abbey and Sion Hill Convent Schools, and their ‘descendants’
42
Another former harp student of Mother Alphonsus, of great
importance to this study as a founding member of Cáirde na Cruite,
was Sheila Larchet-Cuthbert. In an interview with the writer she
remarked that both the Irish and pedal harps were given ‘great
importance and time’ at Loreto Abbey.
43
CHAPTER FIVE
The celebrity harpists and the tourist industry
A former member of the teaching staff at Sion Hill Convent, Sister

Carmel Warde, now manages the school archives, and has provided
some of her recollections of the Sion Hill Harp School. An adult harp
student herself, Sister Carmel recounts that the formal teaching of
the Irish harp began in 1949 by Máirín Ferriter (née Ní Shé). Ní Shé
had come from a background of influence by parents who had an
intense interest in Irish music, literature and language, having been
active members of the Gaelic League. She was one of the
performers, with her three sisters, at the 150th anniversary of the
Belfast Harp Festival at Collins Barracks, Dublin, 1942. 63 In 1951,
four young pupils of Máirín Ferriter, Mary O’Hara, Kathleen
Watkins, Deirdre O’Callaghan and Deirdre Flynn,64 travelled to
London to perform for a BBC television programme. Sister Carmel
related how this event triggered a nationwide popularity for the Irish
harp:
Looking back over the 1950s and 1960s I recall very

happy busy days preparing for Jury’s65 Cabaret...A
troop of Sion Hill Harpists, maybe twenty girls in all
would entertain the guests for two hours. Christmas
time was another highlight for our Harp School…
charity concerts were given in various hospitals and
nursing homes throughout the city and far beyond.
Before the Summer holidays we awaited invitations
from Bunratty Castle, Co. Limerick,66 Killarney
Hotels, Dublin Hotels and the Hilton Hotel, London
for our harpists to entertain guests for a week or
two…These were great days when the Sion Hill
Harp School flourished.
63
See Maher, Tom: The Harp’s a Wonder (Mullingar, 1991), 101.
64
Now president of the Feis Ceoil Association.
65
A Dublin hotel popular with tourists.
66
‘ Medieval’ banquets involving musicians and singers are held here. They are
primarily aimed at tourists.
44
The photograph of Mary O’Hara in figure 11 was taken in 1954.67
Performers in this genre were primarily singers who accompanied

themselves in a simple, chordal style. No published arrangements
existed at that time, and their repertoire consisted largely of songs
taken from collections such as ‘Moore’s Irish Melodies’ or the Petrie
Collection, with adapted accompaniments. Present-day performer
and authority on the Irish harp, Janet Harbison, was a pupil at Sion
Hill Convent where she studied the Irish harp with Máirín Ferriter in
the 1960s. She relates that her teacher:
taught the harp players of Sion Hill by ear. She could

not read music and those of us, her harp students,
who also learned piano, were often called upon to
sound the music she had in books…The tradition we
inherited came directly from the drawing rooms of
the nineteenth century.68
Mary O’Hara was the foremost exponent in this genre. It is

interesting to note that while her vocal style derived in many ways
from western art music, her early arrangements were usually simple
and modal. For instance, her version of ‘Silent, O Moyle’(♫ 1)69 is
entirely sung and played in the Aeolian mode, in contrast to John
Stevenson’s elaborate piano arrangement (figure 2). Another
example of a simple, unpretentious accompaniment can be heard in
‘Seoladh Na Ngamhna’(♫ 2),70 which consists of arpeggios and
sparse open fifths. Given that her harp was equipped with semitone
levers and therefore capable of performing accidentals such as
sharpened sevenths in a minor scale, one could conclude that her
choice of arrangement was due to an aversion to over-romanticising
the music in the way that Stevenson and others had in the nineteenth
century.
67
Copy of photograph supplied to the writer by Sister Carmel Warde, from the
School’s archives.
68
‘Harpists, Harpers or Harpees’, The Crossroads Conference: ‘Tradition and
Change in Irish Traditional Music’, Ed. Fintan, Vallely, Hammy Hamilton, Eithne
Vallely and Liz Doherty, (Dublin, 1996), 95.
69
From O’Hara, Mary: Irish Magic (Cedar: GFS369).
70
Ibid. Translated as ‘Driving the Calves’.
45
Figure 11: Mary O’Hara in 1954
46
A simple style of arranging by other performers in this genre could
possibly be explained by the fact that they were first and foremost
singers, and consequently less proficient on the instrument had they
been primarily harpists. Indeed, according to Gráinne Yeats, 71 the
overall standard of Irish harp-playing was very low at this time. She
is disparaging of the image that was portrayed in general by these
performers:
What you had, basically, were beautiful young girls

singing sweet folk songs, playing little chords, and
they weren’t really playing the instrument. They
were using it solely as an embellishment of the
song… Mary [O’Hara] was the best, and she sang
beautifully, but you did have a lot of terribly
inefficient ones.
The activities of the Sion Hill harp School described above reflect
the significant social and economic changes taking place in Ireland
in the 1950s and 1960s. The television performance by the four Sion
Hill harpists was part of the School’s involvement in the government
initiative to promote the tourist industry in Ireland, known as An
Tostal.72 An economic plan devised by Irish politicians, Sean Lemass
and Thomas Whitaker in the late 1950s,73 with an emphasis on free
trade, led to greatly increased prosperity and a more consumerist
society compared to the austerity of the 1930s and 1940s. Many Irish
emigrants returned, and Ireland became a desirable holiday
destination. Furthermore, a new liberalism was developing in the
Catholic church, culminating with the Second Vatican Council74 in
1963: the Irish harp was emerging from its cosseted convent
environment, into the realms of the tourist cabaret.
71
Born in 1925, Yeats has had a distinguished career as a singer, performer of the
Irish harp, teacher and scholar.
72
Literally, ‘gathering’.
73
See J. C. Beckett: A Short History of Ireland (London, 1986), 169-170.
74
http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/index.htm,
consulted on 0.07.03.
47
CHAPTER SIX
The folk and traditional music revivals
Another product of this changing Irish society (or perhaps partly a

cause) was the phenomenon of the so-called ‘Ballad Boom’,75 which
coincided with a more widespread popular folk revival and ‘hippie’
revolution occurring in the USA and Britain. In particular, the
returning emigrants ‘The Clancy Brothers’ and Tommy Makem were
highly successful in the 1950s and 1960s, with their exuberant style,
guitar accompaniment and often sentimental and nostalgic thematic
material. As with the cabaret harpists, popularity was the key
criterion of these ballad singers, and this, according to some
commentators, greatly compromised quality and style. For instance,
the author on Irish traditional music Breandán Breathnach
commented:
We are now informed in all seriousness that the

lighter commercial ballad personified by the guitar
as the basic accompanying instrument must be
regarded as coming within the definition of Irish
traditional music…The effect of this policy must be
wholly pernicious, as the adulteration of [radio]
programmes purporting to consist of traditional
material confuses an ill-informed public and debases
the general taste.76
Another development in the 1950s was the advent of the pub

‘session’.77 These first began in London by Irish immigrants working
for building companies on the post-war reconstruction of the city,
and gained popularity in Ireland in the 1960s. What began, however,
as an occasion for spontaneous music-making, was soon marketed
by both the tourist and drinks industry, and the subsequent packaging
tended to compromise this spontaneity. Furthermore, dancing was
not normally permitted at these sessions, a fact which perhaps
75
See Ó hAllmhuráin, Gearóid: A Pocket History of Irish Traditional Music,
(Dublin, 1998), 128-129.
76
Breathnach, Breandán: Folk Music and Dances of Ireland (Cork and Dublin,
1971), 125.
77
An informal gathering of musicians.
48
encouraged the separation of music and dance in Irish music. In
addition, the focus on the often loud and fast playing of tunes, reels
in particular, resulted in the neglect of other genres such as songs,
slow airs or historical harp tunes.78 The pub session has, however,
become the main focus of the social life of today’s traditional
musician.
Other developments in the 1950s did prevent Irish traditional music

deteriorating into trite and bland commercialism. Small sub-cultures
had remained in rural areas despite the years of repression by the
Catholic church, and one of the first factors to contribute to the
beginnings of a revival of the true tradition was the radio broadcasts
by piper and collector Séamus Ennis (from 1947-1951), in which the
music of these rural pockets could be heard in cities. Equally
significantly, the musicians of different regions heard each other,
often for the first time, which gave rise to the exchange of ideas and
techniques. Purists such as Breathnach were cautious in their praise
of such radio programmes, maintaining that they would lead to a
blurring of regional styles,79 but they undoubtably did much to raise
the morale of traditional musicians and encourage them to be
positive about their own heritage.
The formation of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann80 by members of the

Dublin Piper’s Club to promote Irish traditional music in 1952 was
also a constructive step in this direction. Comhaltas instigated the
annual Fleadh Cheoil,81 a competitive festival providing a platform
to perform for appreciative audiences, and a forum for the exchange
of styles, repertoire and techniques. The pub session has now
become an important fringe event at the Fleadh. Additionally,
Comhaltas has developed an educational programme which it
78
Harp tunes had not previously been the exclusive domain of harp players. For
instance, 75 Carolan compositions were included in O’Neill’s Music of Ireland:
1850 Melodies, first published in 1903 and mainly aimed at fiddle players.
79
See Breathnach, Breandán: Folk Music and Dances of Ireland (Cork and Dublin,
1971), 124.
80
‘Society of Irish musicians’. Throughout the remainder of the study, in
accordance with common usage the organisation will be referred to as
‘Comhaltas’.
81
‘music festival’.
49
delivers through its 400 branches in Ireland and abroad, in particular
the Scoil Éigse,82 an summer school of traditional music which
includes workshops and lectures, held in Dublin.
Throughout its early years, however, Comhaltas had a negative view

of the Irish harp due to the image of the instrument described above,
as explained by Aibhlín McCrann, the current secretary of Cáirde Na
Cruite:
Comhaltas did the harp no favours in the 1950s,

because they just totally ignored it, and kind of
neatly put it into a little box and said: ‘Ah, you’re
fine for cabaret and the American circuit: “the
Colleen behind the harp”’. [Their attitude] was
understandable in some ways, because what they
were hearing wasn’t their perception of what Irish
music should be.
The lack of recognition of the Irish harp as a traditional instrument

by Comhaltas at this time was confirmed by Séamus MacMathuna, a
long-term collector and researcher for the organisation:
I suppose we would generally be perceived as being

conservative. We would see ourselves as custodians
of the old, if you like, and what’s been seen through
the generations as being important…The harp was
looked at as a bit of a sacred cow in the early years
[of Comhaltas]. It was something that you paid lip-
service to…Probably with Comhaltas it got off to a
bad start.
In the 1960s, the Irish composer Séan O’Riada (1931-1971) came to

the public eye through his film scores, particularly Mise Eire (‘I am
Ireland’), about the War of Independence, incorporating traditional
melodies into the score. In 1960 he formed ‘Ceoltóirí Cualann’ (later
to become ‘The Chieftains’) and raised the respectability of Irish
music by introducing dress-suits and classical-style arrangements,
whilst retaining a traditional style of playing. Most importantly, it
82
‘summer school’.
50
was music to be listened to, rather than to be danced to. O’Riada had
a deep interest in the music of the harpers recorded in manuscripts
such as Bunting’s, asserting in a 1962 radio series entitled ‘Our
Musical Heritage’, that ‘the harp in former times was our
outstanding glory in music’.83 However, he believed that the
instrument had completely died out by the middle of the nineteenth
century with the last of the wire-strung harpers, and was dismissive
of the gut-strung instrument which replaced it, and of the current
‘parlour’ style of harp-playing:
To revive the true harping tradition was impossible:

instead, a style of harping was developed which was
based mainly on Welsh harping,84 quite different
from the Irish style…I think it is a pity we do not try
to reconstruct a style closer to the traditional style,
instead of propagating an invented style which has
nothing to do with tradition.85
As there were no wire-strung harps being played in the 1960s,

O’Riada chose to play the harpsichord in ‘Ceoltóirí Cualann’,
believing it to be close in sound to the former instrument. His
complete disregard for the gut-strung Irish harp was shown when
O’Riada refused, when asked by Gráinne Yeats, to compose a piece
of music for the instrument. In an interview with the writer, Yeats
explained his reasons thus:
I think he was depressed about the standard of harp-

playing at the time, because it was very, very low…
the little girl image, singing sweet songs, was not
one that appealed to Séan. And he was right, I think.
Because we’re talking here about a very old and
beautiful tradition.
83
A book was later published based on this series, edited by Thomas Kinsella. See
O’Riada, Sean: Our Musical Heritage (Portlaoise, 1982), 77.
84
The writer is unclear about what is meant by this comparison. It is perhaps a
reference to the Romantic style of pedal harp playing emerging in Wales in the
nineteenth century, as exemplified by John Thomas’s arrangements of Welsh folk
songs. See Ellis, Osian: The Story of the Harp in Wales (Cardiff, 1980).
85
O’Riada, Sean: Our Musical Heritage (Portlaise, 1982), 78. Janet Harbison
noted a contradiction in O’Riada’s point of view here, observing that his concept
of an ensemble of musicians was not ‘traditional’ either. See Harbison, Janet:
‘Harpists, Harpers or Harpees’, The Crossroads Conference: ‘Tradition and
Change in Irish Traditional Music’, Ed. Fintan, Vallely, Hammy Hamilton, Eithne
Vallely and Liz Doherty, (Dublin, 1996), 98.
51
Throughout the first half of the century there had been a gradually
increasing desire amongst the purists, probably culminating with
O’Riada, to return to this ‘old and beautiful tradition’, and to move
away from overly-sentimental representations of Irish music. In this
regard the scholarly work of Donal O’Sullivan (1893-1973) was very
important.86 His work, Carolan: the Life, Times and Music of an
Irish Harper, published in London in 1958, was seminal and
inspirational at a time when Irish traditional music was in the early
stages of a major revival.
86
In his research on Bunting’s manuscripts, his main aim was to reunite melodies
transcribed by Bunting with their original words (which were not included in the
latter’s publications), and the results of his research appeared in the Journal of the
Irish Folk Song Society between 1927 and 1939 (see O’Sullivan, Donal: ‘The Irish
Folk Song Society’, Ed. Fleischmann, Aloys: Music in Ireland: A Symposium,
(Cork, 1952), 297.
52
CHAPTER SEVEN
Cáirde Na Cruite: the early years
In 1953, Gráinne Yeats, then a classical singer and performer of

unaccompanied Gaelic song, began to learn the Irish harp as an adult
with Mercedes Garvey, the tutor for the pedal and Irish harp at the
Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dublin. Her initial aim in this was to
add variety to her performances.87 However, she explained that as a
history graduate, she felt motivated to explore the history of the
instrument and its music. Becoming familiar with all the scholarship
available, she discovered the music in collections such as Bunting’s.
The desire to raise the status of the Irish harp and dispel the ‘banquet
ladies’ image associated with the instrument, motivated Yeats and
five other like-minded individuals, including Sheila Larchet-
Cuthbert and Mercedes Garvey to form, in 1960, Cáirde Na Cruite.88
The main objective was ‘to restore the Irish harp, symbol of ancient
culture, to a place of honour and to make more widely known and
appreciated all that had survived of the heritage of Irish harp
music’.89
The founders of the society came largely from a background of

classical training, and had an educated, Gaelic League-influenced
approach to Irish culture. Furthermore, in order to break free of the
commercialised image associated with the Irish harp and strongly
perpetuated by the tourist industry, it was necessary for the founding
members of Cáirde Na Cruite to be single-minded and determined.
Aibhlín McCrann commented on the difficulties faced by these
individuals:
It was a struggle to achieve everything they had

achieved…to fight to preserve what they felt was
heritage, what was indigenous, what was native to
87
See Bell, Aidan: ‘Gráinne Yeats’, Sounding Strings Nos 7 & 8, (West Lothian,
Summer/Autumn 1995), 2.
88
‘Friends of the Irish harp’.
89
Maher, Tom: The Harp’s a Wonder, (Mullingar 1991), 103.
53
the country…It [was] an entirely different attitude of
mind.
The methods by which they set out to achieve their objective of

‘restoring the Irish harp to its place of honour’ were described to the
writer by Sheila Larchet-Cuthbert:
1. To teach and foster learning.
2. To hold public performances.
3. To preserve what was left of the treasury of Irish harp music
in manuscripts.
4. To publish arrangements and a tutor (at this time there was no
music in print suitable for playing on the Irish harp).
5. To encourage new compositions for the instrument.
While the founders were well aware that in the ‘golden age’ of the
harp in Ireland the instrument was strung with wire and played with
a completely different technique to its gut-strung successor,90 they
accepted the fact that the latter instrument had firmly entrenched
itself as the new Irish harp. It was felt, explained Larchet-Cuthbert,
that the situation was now irreversible: the new instrument with its
classically-derived technique and semitone levers was ‘here to
stay’.91 There were very few Irish harp makers during the 1950s and
1960s; George Morley in London made small gut-strung harps with
levers, and the only maker in Ireland was Daniel Quinn. Nobody was
interested in making the wire-strung harp instrument; indeed,
Gráinne Yeats recounted to the writer that Quinn was absolutely
incredulous when asked by her to make a wire-strung harp in the
1950s.
As regards printed music, the founders of the society concentrated on

publishing arrangements for the gut-strung Irish harp. The piece in
figure 12,92 arranged by Mercedes McGrath,93 ‘The Parting of
90
See Appendix I: ‘The wire-strung harp’.
91
See Appendix II: ‘Small harp makers at the turn of the twentieth century’.
92
From McGrath, Mercedes: My Gentle Harp (Dublin, 1992), 14.
93
Mercedes Garvey’s mother.
54
Figure 12: Arr. McGrath: ‘The Parting of Friends’
55
Friends’ from the Bunting Collection, is an example. The irregular
phrasing and unpredictable nature of this piece, common qualities of
many pieces in the historical harp tradition, would have been
unfamiliar to the majority of banquet harpists with their repertoire of
folk songs with simple harp accompaniment.
Sheila Larchet-Cuthbert began the task of writing a tutor for Irish

harp, compiling repertoire from the following sources: arrangements
of music from the harper composers such as Carolan, arrangements
of pieces from the nineteenth-century collections such as Petrie, and
compositions by contemporary players and composers. Pieces in the
tutor are arranged for solo harp, harp and voice, and harp ensemble.
The example in figure 13 is from the first category, an arrangement
by Larchet-Cuthbert of ‘Carolan’s Farewell to Music’.94 It is a fairly
lavish but harmonically conventional arrangement using full, rich
chords. In contrast, the extract in figure 14 is from an atonal work for
two harps by Seóirse Bodley (1933- ).95 In this work the composer
uses several special effects which by this time had become quite
familiar to pedal harpists playing contemporary compositions, for
example the use of harmonics, glissandi, the occasional plucking
with the fingernails and près de la table.96 A popular repertoire piece
from The Irish Harp Book, which has featured on the Feis Cheoil
syllabus for Irish harp since the early years of Cáirde Na Cruite, is
‘Interlude’, by T.C. Kelly (1917-1985).97 Figure 15 shows an
extract98 from this rather atmospheric piece, which relies for its effect
largely on the use of added sevenths, ninths and elevenths.
94
95
From ibid., 211.
96
Playing near the soundboard.
97
Larchet-Cuthbert notes that Kelly was ‘influenced by Irish folk music and
Anglo-Irish composers such as Stanford, Harty and Hughes’ (The Irish Harp
Book: a Tutor and Companion, (Cork and Dublin, 1975), 241).
98
56
Figure 13: Arr. Larchet-Cuthbert: ‘Carolan’s Farewell to Music’
57
Figure 14: Bodley: ‘Duet Scintillae’ (extract)
58
Figure 15: T. C. Kelly: ‘Interlude’ (extract)
59
The section of the tutor which describes ‘the position of the hands’ is
important, because it indicates that the advocated method of playing
the Irish harp was directly taken from pedal harp technique:
To obtain a full and beautiful tone, the thumbs

should be placed high, without straining and the
fingers extended, the wrist being slightly advanced
towards the strings99…The manner of plucking the
strings is of great importance. The finger, on
releasing the string should travel inwards to the palm
of the hand and make contact with it. This complete
finger action is essential. The thumb travels to the
side of the first finger and makes contact with it. The
completed action of fingers and thumb is vital if the
performer is to produce not only a full and beautiful
tone but resonance as well.100
In a foreword to the tutor, published in 1975, Breandán Breathnach

wrote that he expected Larchet-Cuthbert’s inclusion of works by
‘composers of the first rank in Ireland…whether by design or
otherwise, [to] achieve a considerable advance towards breaching
that barrier between “art” and folk-music in Ireland.’ Compositions
of this nature demonstrated the potential of the Irish harp as a high-
art ‘concert’ instrument, and paved the way for other harpists to
develop this concept. The most noteworthy in this field today is
harpist and composer Anne-Marie O’Farrell, whose work will be
explored later in the dissertation.
It is interesting that Breathnach, like O’Riada, was hitherto

dismissive of the gut-strung Irish harp, having ignored it altogether
in the chapter on the harp in Folk Music and Dances of Ireland
(1971), believing the harp tradition to have died out with the last of
the wire-strung harpers.101 Four years later his opinion appears to
99
This results in the fingers pointing downwards.
100
and Dublin, 1975), 17-18. This is generally referred to amongst Irish harp players
as the ‘classical’ technique. Throughout the study the use of this term will also be
adopted.
101
1971), 65-9.
60
have changed, perhaps a testament to the efforts of Larchet-Cuthbert
and other members of Cáirde Na Cruite to portray the instrument in
a positive light. In the foreword to The Irish Harp Book, he
acknowledges that:
Any live tradition is no more than a body of

practices and techniques which had a beginning at
some point of time in the past and has been acted
upon and moulded in its transmission to the present
by a cohesive body of practitioners. The present
cultivation of the Irish harp has been sustained too
long to be dismissed as an ephemeral interest in
things of the past. It is not too fanciful, then, to see
in it a nucleus from which will develop a national
school of harping with a distinctively national
style...I look forward with confidence to the
realisation of the author’s hopes that this work will
inaugurate a new and exciting era for our national
instrument.102
Indeed, in the next 30 years Breathnach’s prediction proved accurate,

and the writer will explore this ‘national school of harping’ from
chapter nine onwards. It must be emphasised, however, that the
approach to the Irish harp by early members of Cáirde Na Cruite,
such as Gráinne Yeats, Sheila Larchet-Cuthbert and Mercedes
Garvey, was largely influenced by their western art music training,
and had nothing in common with mainstream Irish musicians who
practiced the oral tradition and favoured dance music such as jigs,
reels and hornpipes. The established and accepted traditional
instruments at this time, according to Séamus MacMathuna of
Comhaltas, were the fiddle, flute, whistle, pipes, concertina and
button accordian. As related to the writer by MacMathuna, even the
repertoire of the old harping tradition, brought to the fore by
O’Riada in the 1960s only created a ‘token acknowledgement’
amongst the general body of traditional musicians. In approximately
the first fifteen years of Cáirde Na Cruite’s existence there was little
or no communication between the two organisations.
102
and Dublin, 1975), 8-9.
61
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Irish Harp as a High Art Concert Instrument
Though the role of the instrument and its repertoire ultimately

deviated dramatically from Cáirde Na Cruite’s initial vision, a
process which will be explored in the next chapter, a significant
minority of harp players has continued, up to the present day, to
promote the Irish harp as a high-art concert instrument. The means
by which this has been achieved, and the music itself, will be the
focus of this chapter.
Now in its 107th year, the Feis Ceoil continues to provide a platform
for the relatively small number having an interest in this aspect of
the instrument’s repertoire. Interestingly, the festival has changed its
focus since its inception, when it was designed to promote both art
and traditional music. Now sponsored by the multinational company
Siemens who have perhaps had an influence in the festival’s focus,
the Feis Ceoil now describes itself as ‘Europe’s longest running
classical music festival’.103 Certainly, the set pieces for the Irish harp
competitions do tend to reflect an art music bias. The instrument’s
contribution to the festival in 2003 is described more fully in
Appendix III.
A system of graded examinations exists to serve the requirements of

those wishing to pursue the Irish harp as a concert instrument, by the
Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dublin. It has been in place since the
current tutor of pedal and Irish harps, Aine Ní Dhuill, began teaching
at this instutution in 1990, and was devised by her. The syllabus is
described in greater detail in Appendix IV.
Derek Bell, born in Belfast in 1935, was the most well known
exponent of the art music genre of Irish harp playing. Already an
accomplished pianist, oboist and composer, having studied at the
Royal College of Music, he began learning the pedal harp at the age
103
See www.siemens.ie/feis (consulted on 05.08.03).
62
of 25, with Sheila Larchet-Cuthbert and Gwendolen Mason. Five
years later he became principal harpist and oboist with the BBC
Northern Ireland Orchestra and subsequently professor of harp at the
Belfast Academy of Music. From 1972 he became a member of
‘The Chieftains’, in which he played both gut and wire strung Irish
harps. In 2000 he was awarded an M.B.E. ‘for composition and for
services to traditional music’. He died in 2002.104
It has already been noted that ‘The Chieftains’, formed in 1963,

helped to raise the status of Irish traditional music by introducing art
music-influenced arrangements of dance tunes, slow airs and
historical harp pieces, in concert-hall performances. Derek Bell’s
harp, when in an accompanimental role within the ensemble, lent an
orchestral quality to the sound, as can be heard in the recording ‘An
Ghéagus an Grá Geal’ (♫ 3).105 On the whole, he did not contribute
melodically to dance tunes, but provided chordal accompaniment.
This, however, was not in the nature of what is generally termed as
‘vamping’,106 but was thoughtfully considered and had a significant
role in the musical texture. For example, in the three-part reel ‘Boil
the Breakfast Early’(♫ 4),107 the first playing of the first section of
the tune is punctuated with emphatic single chords at the end of each
phrase, and in the second playing, the second part ends with an
effective short counter melody. Bell’s solo contributions as a member
of ‘The Chieftains’ consisted of arrangements of harp tunes such as
Carolan’s, or florid renditions of slow melodies, such as that entitled
‘Ceol Bhriotánach’(♫ 5),108 with an elaborate arpeggiated
accompaniment.
104
Biographical material obtained from: Bell, Derek: ‘How I Came to the Harp or
How the Harp and I Came to Each Other’, The American Harp Journal, Vol. 17,
No. 4 (New York, Winter, 2000), 27-9, and Clark, Nora Joan and Stanffer, Sylvia:
‘Derek Bell, Harper-Composer’, Folk Harp Journal, no.119 (Walton Creek,
Spring, 2003), 47 (originally published by North Creek Press, 2002).
105
‘The Goose and Bright Love’. From ‘The Chieftains’: Chieftains 5, (Claddagh
Records Limited: CC16).
106
A very simple form of accompaniment, mainly using primary triads, in a
decidedly subsidiary role.
107
From ‘The Chieftains’: Chieftains 9: Boil the Breakfast Early (Claddagh
Records Limited: CC30).
108
‘Breton Music’. From ‘The Chieftains’: Chieftains 5, (Claddagh Records
Limited: CC16).
63
Although, as noted above, the role of the Irish harp as a high art
instrument in the past 30 years or so has been relatively small in
terms of the number of people actually playing in this genre, Bell has
done much to encourage this perception of the instrument due to his
visibility as a member of such a high-profile group as ‘The
Chieftains’. During this time, as a result of his celebrity status his
name has become almost synonymous with the instrument.
The only Irish harp player of a younger generation having a bias

towards western art music and significantly coming to the fore in the
present day, is Anne-Marie O’Farrell. Born in 1966, O’Farrell
studied the Irish harp from age nine with Nancy Calthorpe, and the
pedal harp from age 20 with Helen Davies, Sheila Larchet-Cuthbert
and Mercedes Garvey, at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. Her
other studies were piano and singing, and also composition, in which
field she obtained her first degree at University College Dublin.
Subsequently she obtained an MA in composition with first class
honours at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth.
O’Farrell is a musician with a wide range of interests, many of which

are mutually influential. For instance, in interview she remarked:
I found when I took up the pedal harp that my Irish

harp playing was transformed, because I got a whole
extra physical strength in the hands….I’ve noticed in
some situations [that using amplification in
performance] can become a substitute for tone
production. The thing I like about classical training
is that it teaches you to produce this tone yourself,
and to project it, and to have a tonal palette from
which you can select the sound you want. I don’t
know if there’s enough of that shown in traditional
music teaching.
While the notion of projecting one’s sound is a concept which

belongs largely to art music, it is a fact that since the beginning of
the revival in the 1950s, traditional dance music has undergone a
radical change in context. It is now rarely heard in its historical solo,
monodic form solely to accompany dancing. In the writer’s opinion,
64
O’Farrell’s views are therefore highly relevant to the practice that
has developed over the last 50 years of playing traditional music
purely to be listened to, either solo or as part of a group, often at
large venues.
Different aspects of O’Farrell’s ‘tonal pallette’ are apparent in her

recording of ‘My Lagan Love’ (♫ 6).109 It is a Romantic arrangement
with lush arpeggios and occasional chromatic harmony, and with
sensitive and musical use of phrasing and dynamics. O’Farrell’s
renditions of dance tunes, for example the reel ‘Peter Street’(♫ 7),110
in its polish, smoothness and evenness of tone, the occasional
playing of the melody in a different octave, and effects usually
associated with the pedal harp such as glissandi and harmonics, are
far removed from those produced by musicians with a traditional
background. The result is an interpretation which sounds like a dance
tune played by a musician with classical training. However, this is
not to say it has no validity, provided that one recognises it as
belonging to a genre in its own right. This is a pleasing and different
rendition of the reel, with satisfying added-seventh harmonies adding
to the light-heartedness and charm projected in the performance.
O’Farrell’s broad musical education, especially her piano playing,

have inspired her to extend the repertoire for the Irish harp,
remarking that she was subject to considerable frustration in her
early years of learning the harp:
There’s such a vast difference between the great

range of things that composers have said through the
piano, as opposed to what’s been said through the
Irish harp, or at least what I’d come across at that
point. It was musically very limited….My
knowledge of piano repertoire made me musically
curious.
While appreciating the current popularity of dance tunes being

played on the Irish harp, she maintains that ‘a happier balance of
folk, classical (e.g. baroque and early music) and twentieth century
109
From O’Farrell, Anne-Marie: My Lagan Love (CMR Records: CMCD 1075).
110
Ibid.
65
music would contribute to young harpists becoming better
musicians’.111 Certainly, there are many musicians who perform both
traditional and art music successfully, but the writer would question
whether this fact has any contribution to rendering them ‘better
musicians’, and would suggest that their ability to perform
convincingly in both genres stems from the different skills being
learned in parallel, as it were, like two separate languages, from an
early age. To continue the analogy, the simple fact that one is
bilingual does not in itself necessarily enable a greater proficiency in
either language.
O’Farrell would go so far as to maintain that ‘the shortage of

advanced repertoire for the non-pedal harp is a problem which,
unless addressed, will ultimately hinder the development of the
instrument’.112 As there is no shortage of tunes to play in the
traditional musician’s repertoire, the problem is one which therefore
has relevance only to those wishing to pursue the Irish harp as a
concert instrument. O’Farrell has certainly made strides in
addressing this issue, having dedicated considerable time and effort
to the task of searching for music that is appropriate for
transcription, and also working with contemporary composers113 and
writing for the instrument herself. Her short and atmospheric work
Prelude for Irish harp (figure 16114), composed in 1996 for one of
her students, certainly demands a virtuosity not hitherto commonly
expected of the non-pedal harpist. O’Farrell remarked, however, that
composition for the Irish harp is an area to which she has devoted
111
O’Farrell, Anne-Marie: ‘Expanding the Repertoire’, Sounding Strings No.9
(West Lothian, Spring 1996), 29.
112
Ibid.
113
For example, she has collaborated with the composers Paul Hayes, Donal
Hurley and Fergus Johnston in works for mezzo soprano, non-pedal harp and
electronics, in a concert featuring electro-acoustic music (see O’Farrell, Anne-
Marie: ‘Expanding the Repertoire’, Sounding Strings No.9 (West Lothian, Spring
1996), 30).
114
Printed in Sounding Strings No. 14 (West Lothian, Spring 1998), 40-41.
66
Figure 16: O’Farrell: Prelude for Irish Harp (extract)
67
limited time, preferring to work on transcriptions of the considerable
amount of appropriate material already available.
O’Farrell has transcribed some works from the pedal harp repertoire,
such as John Thomas’s Bugeilio’r Gwenith Gwyn,115 and Felix
Godefroid’s Etude de Concert. An example of one of the challenging
aspects of transcribing pedal harp repertoire occurs in both of these
works, in which the harpist is required to use enharmonics (for
example, B flat and A sharp on two adjacent strings) to achieve rapid
unison notes. As this is not possible on the Irish harp, O’Farrell’s
solution is to play one of the notes in question as a left hand
harmonic, as in the opening passage of the former work (♫ 8) (see
figure 17).116 O’Farrell’s treatment of the middle section of the
Godefroid (figure 18117, bars 2-7) is more complex, the harmonics
being played in the left hand either an octave or a 12th below,
performed on whichever string is not already ‘in use’.
Using harmonics in this way inevitably results in the left hand, in

O’Farrell’s words, ‘jumping around madly’, and it is this type of
practice, together with numerous lever changes (there are 69 in the
Thomas118), that raises the question of whether anything is gained
from transcribing these idiomatic pedal harp pieces. She remarked,
however:
Hand on heart, [they are] not in need of a

transcription for Irish harp, but Irish harpists are in
need of music to play…I [don’t do] it as a kind of
circus trick…I’m simply looking for more music to
play.
In the writer’s opinion, of more value to the Irish harpist’s repertoire

are the transcriptions that benefit from the particular qualities given
115
‘Watching the White Wheat’.
116
Musical extract from O’Farrell, Anne-Marie: The Jig’s Up, (Anne-Marie
O’Farrell: CD1903). Notated extract from the sheet music published by Adlais.
117
Notated extract from the sheet music published by Salvi.
118
See liner notes to O’Farrell, Anne-Marie: My Lagan Love (CMR Records:
CMCD 1075).
68
Figure 17: Thomas: Bugeilio’r Gwenith Gwyn (extract)
69
Figure 18: Godefroid: Etude de Concert (extract)
70
to it by that instrument. For instance, O’Farrell has transcribed much
of the Baroque lute and keyboard repertoire for the Irish harp. She
particularly favours J.S. Bach, for the following reasons:
A lot of Bach’s music is similar in range to the Irish

harp, and you could be utterly faithful to the
original, and it’s a nice extra that Bach was very
much in favour of having his music transcribed for
other instruments…Also, the thickness of the strings
would be closer to the type of harp which would
have been played at the time, and would give, not
the same sound, but certainly closer to it than the
pedal harp…When pedal harpists play Bach, often
they play transcriptions by people like Marcel
Grandjany, and they have a very nineteenth-century,
big, whooshy flavour, which quite transforms the
character…On the Irish harp you can do it more
faithfully.
Interestingly, on occasion O’Farrell has found works that are more

practicable, in harpistic terms, to transcribe for the Irish harp than the
pedal instrument. For instance, the Irish harp has the capacity to
sharpen or flatten a string in one octave but not in another, whereas a
pedal mechanism causes all the strings of the same note name to
alter, throughout the range of the instrument. O’Farrell found this a
very desirable attribute of the Irish harp when transcribing Bach’s
Italian Concerto for keyboard, whose second movement contains B
flats and B naturals played consecutively in different octaves.
As the use of levers becomes highly relevant in the playing of music

with a complex harmonic language, O’Farrell has developed some
innovative techniques in this area which she hopes will eventually
become standard. These include multiple lever changes, where two
or more levers are changed at the same time with different fingers
(either in the same or in opposite directions), the changing of a lever
with a knuckle while a finger of the same hand plays a string, and the
use of the right hand to change a lever, reaching over the harmonic
curve of the harp. O’Farrell used all these techniques in a
71
performance of her own contemporary arrangement of Carolan’s
‘Farewell to Music’, containing much jazz-derived chromatic
harmony, at the 2003 Cáirde Na Cruite course. The writer did,
however, feel that the considerable amount of visual activity of the
hands constantly changing levers distracted somewhat from the
music being performed. The impression was given of an instrument
being forced into a musical language for which it was never
designed. Equally, it could also be argued that the Irish harp in terms
of development of lever technique is in its infancy; what appears to
be a visually bizarre performance of a piece in today’s terms may in
the future be accepted as one which is simply utilizing the standard
technique of the instrument.
In O’Farrell’s view, the type of non-pedal harp used by players

wishing to exploit it as a concert instrument is of extreme
importance: ‘You need an Irish harp with a big sound’. This
generally implies a harp with greater stature, such as the 38-string119
instrument made by the Italian company Salvi which she plays
herself. Furthermore, as the harpist will be using the semitone levers
significantly more frequently than in performances of traditional
music, she emphasises the need for levers that are easy to use:
On different harps the level of comfort is very

variable. If you’re practising for a few hours and if
you’re at these levers all the time, it becomes a bit of
an issue if they’re not comfortable to use, apart from
the speed you need during the actual piece.
In 1999 she began working as a consultant for Salvi’s non-pedal

harp, mainly for the design of the lever mechanism. She explained to
the writer how this aspect of Salvi’s design has altered due to her
recommendations:
What was clever about the Salvi mechanism was

they managed to divorce pressure on the string from
pressure on the finger, so you could change levers at
speed and have multiple lever changes, without
119
This has a further two notes in the treble, and two in the bass, compared to what
has become the standard 34-string Irish harp.
72
struggling and pressing against the mechanism…
They’ve also revised the ‘paddle’ shape and have
little silicone caps on the lever handle, so you have
very good grip even when your hands are perspiring
in a concert. Caps are coloured as well, so you can
find your way around very fast.
The writer would agree with O’Farrell that the lack of suitable
material is a problem for the Irish harpist who wishes to pursue a
repertoire of art music. She has made significant strides in
addressing this issue, and clearly has the musicianship and strength
of personality for her views to be influential. However, it must be
emphasised that as the only major harp player to hold these
aspirations in a generation after the Cáirde Na Cruite founders, she
is something of a lone voice. This is a fact that she recognises, and
the writer agrees with her conviction that unless more contemporary
composers are encouraged to write for the instrument, and unless
harpists have more guidance in the skills of arranging suitable music
and composing original works, ‘the problem of repertoire in its
various elements and its implications for the instrument and its
players will remain a serious one’.120
120
O’Farrell, Anne-Marie: ‘Expanding the Repertoire’, Sounding Strings No. 9
(West Lothian, Spring 1996), 30.
73
CHAPTER NINE
The emergence of the ‘traditional’ Irish harp
In the 1960s the harps used were almost invariably made by Daniel
Quinn (see figure 19121), who, at the time, according to Gráinne
Yeats, was the sole harp maker in Ireland. The general opinion of
these players towards Quinn’s harps is negative. For instance, Janet
Harbison (see chapter 11) commented that they were small in sound
and only suited to simple vocal accompaniments, and also that they
were somewhat fragile. Kathleen Loughnane122 felt that the spacing
between the strings was uncomfortably small, and that string tension
was too light. They were made of gut, and were constantly breaking
and going out of tune. In addition, Máire Ní Chathasaigh (see
chapter 10) remembered that the waiting list for Quinn’s harps was
often as long as two years. All of these players, and several others,123
were dissatisfied with the scope of the Irish harp repertoire, with its
often classically-influenced arrangements, and experimented with
the playing of traditional dance tunes. However, any attempt to play
this music on Quinn’s harps met with disappointment. They were
simply not designed for this repertoire. Clearly there was a demand
for a different design of harp.
Interestingly, it was a Japanese company, Aoyama, that satisfied this

demand. The following account of the origins of Aoyama’s small
harp was related by Gráinne Yeats.124Already a pedal harp making
company, in the 1950s Aoyama began making small instruments
based on the design of the London harp-maker John Morley.125
121
Photograph of Quinn harp from Rimmer, Joan: The Irish Harp (Cork, 1969), 72.
122
One of the tutors at the Cáirde Na Cruite harp course, Loughnane, born in 1949,
formed the group Dordan with Dearbhaill Standun and Mary Bergin in 1990.
123
Notably Noreen Donaghue from Dublin, and Patricia Daly from Armagh.
124
The writer was unable to glean any information directly from the Aoyama
company. However, Yeats has had a connection with the company due to her tour
in Japan in the 1970s, during which Aoyama presented her with one of their Irish
harps.
125
Rensch notes that this family business of pedal harp-makers flourished from
1817 to about 1923, at which time John Morley changed its focus, concentrating
on ‘pedal harp repair, harp resale and the occasional production of a small non-
pedal harp of 30 strings.’ (Rensch, Roslyn: Harps and Harpists, (London, 1989),
216.
74
Figure 19: Harp by Daniel Quinn of Dublin
75
During the 1960s Aoyama introduced several significant changes to
the design. Nylon strings were introduced instead of gut. The range
of the instrument increased to 34 strings, adding a further two notes
at the bottom of the instrument, and two at the top. The design of the
semitone levers was also changed. In 1962, the American company
Lyon and Healy was the first to introduce levers on their small harps
that moved up and down, instead of twisting sideways.126
Consequently, lever changes could be made faster and more easily.
The idea was copied by Aoyama.
In the late 1960s, Aoyama’s harps were introduced to the Irish

market. Janet Harbison, who also played classical piano and
traditional flute and whistle, described a ‘dramatic visit of three
Japanese gentlemen’ to the harp room at Sion Hill convent, where
the students and teachers were invited to appraise the prototypes.127
In the interview with the writer she enthused:
When the new prototypes were brought over, my

father bought one for me immediately…I was
thrilled with it. It was far and away the best harp out
of any of the harps that I’d ever tried, and was very
rewarding in terms of playing the [dance] tunes.
They differed from other harps in that they were heavier and
stronger, physically and in terms of tone quality. The strings were
spaced further apart, and the nylon material gave a brighter, less
mellow sound.128 Of great significance also was the addition of the
two extra notes in the bass, the C and D two octaves below middle
126
Macmaster, Mary: ‘Harp V, 10(v): “Lever Harps”’, The New Grove Dictionary
of Music and musicians (London, 2001), 920.
127
Harbison, Janet: ‘Harpists, Harpers or Harpees’, The Crossroads Conference:
‘Tradition and Change in Irish Traditional Music’, Ed. Fintan, Vallely, Hammy
Hamilton, Eithne Vallely and Liz Doherty, (Dublin, 1996), 95.
128
From many of the writer’s interviews it emerged that this attribute is generally
favoured amongst harpers who play traditional dance music, largely due to the fact
that the sound is less likely to be lost when playing with a group of musicians,
such as in a session. The writer visited the workshop of Colm O’ Meachair in
Dublin on 04.07.03. This harp maker testified to the large number of harp players
currently requiring this ‘bright’ tone from their instrument. He now deliberately
produces harps to this specification, and achieves the required tone by increasing
the string tension. In addition, he uses a particular kind of nylon string called
‘composite’, a material that produces a particularly bright tone.
76
C. This enabled the player to play satisfying left-hand
accompaniments to traditional tunes, which are usually in the keys of
G and D. The new harp appeared to have a dramatically liberating
effect:
The much improved sound of the Japanese harp was

a boon to me and my harp room colleagues. I was
happy to exploit all the new instrumental
possibilities, accompany or arrange for my friends
and indulge in the vast dance music repertoire which
all my traditional musician friends outside school
were playing nightly.129
Shortly after Aoyama’s visit to Sion Hill, their Irish harp became
available at McCullagh Pigott’s music shop in Dublin. Máire Ní
Chathasaigh of Cork, at the time aged approximately thirteen, also
obtained a model. In the interview with the writer she also attested to
the revolutionary effect of the Japanese instrument. She is convinced
that:
If that instrument hadn’t been there, I probably

wouldn’t have pursued it. Sometimes the technical
means to do something has to be there before it
sparks an artistic response. Otherwise, I probably
would have directed my artistic energies into some
other instrument completely.
In the early 1970s Irish traditional music was being influenced by the
energy of the American folk music revival, exemplified by Woody
Guthrie and Bob Dylan. This contributed to the emergence of what
became known as the Irish ‘supergroups’, notably ‘Planxty’, ‘The
Bothy Band’ and ‘De Dannan’. ‘Planxty’, the first of these, began the
vogue for playing other stringed instruments not hitherto perceived
as traditional by mainstream Irish musicians. On their second album,
The Well Below the Valley, produced in 1973, the bouzouki and
mandolin were introduced for the first time in Irish traditional music.
The bouzouki blends well with the pipes, the two instruments
129
Harbison, Janet: ‘Harpists, Harpers or Harpees’, The Crossroads Conference:
‘Tradition and Change in Irish Traditional Music’, Ed. Fintan, Vallely, Hammy
Hamilton, Eithne Vallely and Liz Doherty, (Dublin, 1996), 96.
77
playing in unison many times on this recording, for instance in ‘The
Fisherman’s Hornpipe’ (♫ 9).130 Both the mandolin and bouzouki
contribute to an exotic flavour in ‘The Well Below the Valley’ (♫
10).131 The album undoubtedly encouraged harpers in the 1970s, in a
sense giving them ‘permission’ to explore the potential of yet another
stringed instrument as a vehicle for Irish traditional music.
In addition to ‘Planxty’, the influence of the Breton harper Alan

Stivell in the 1970s should not be underestimated. Though a
performer of the wire-strung harp and instigator of an awakening of
interest in that instrument in the 1970s, he was also inspirational to
many gut-strung harpers and other musicians. Performing with a
rock-based band in tours of Europe and America, and using the harp
in a solo and group context, where it had hitherto mainly been used
only to accompany the voice in solo singing in a completely different
musical genre, he created an awareness of the harp amongst young
people, many of whom may have not seen a harp before.132
On his album The Rennaissance of the Celtic Harp,133 there is a

medley entitled ‘Gaeltacht’, described by Stivell as ‘folk themes,
dedicated to Sean O’Riada’, which includes various Irish and
Scottish dance tunes performed on the harp. Unfortunately, his
renditions of the tunes are rhythmically uneven, stilted, mechanical
and lacking in style, for example the Irish jig ‘Port Ui Mhuirgheasa’
(♫ 11).134 However, Stivell’s willingness to experiment undoubtedly
encouraged other harpers who were attempting to push the
boundaries of the instrument.
130
From ‘Planxty’: The Well below the Valley (Shanachie Records: SH 79010).
131
Ibid.
132
Macmaster, Mary: ‘Harp V, 10(i): “The Celtic Revival”’, The New Grove
Dictionary of Music and musicians (London, 2001), 925.
133
First released in 1971, in 1973 the album was nominated in the USA for a
Grammy Award for the ‘Best Ethnic or Traditional Rock Recording’.
134
From Stivell, Alan: Renaissance of the Celtic Harp (Philips: 818 007-2).
78
CHAPTER 10
Style and technique: Máire Ní Chathasaigh
Born in Cork in1956, Ní Chathasaigh began the Irish harp at the age
of 11, at that time already playing the piano, fiddle and singing.
Dissatisfied with the available repertoire of the harp, she began
experimenting with the playing of dance tunes on the instrument,
leading to successes in many competitions in the 1970s and early
1980s. In contrast to Alan Stivell, Ní Chathasaigh aimed to create, as
it were, an authentically traditional style. She wished to ‘re-integrate
the harp into the oral tradition- to make it sound like it had always
been used in that way’.
Born into a family of singers, growing up bilingually in an area of

Ireland strong in traditional music, by the time she began the harp
the stylistic elements of the genre were deeply ingrained. Her years
spent developing techniques appropriate to the instrument, within the
language of the Irish music tradition, culminated in her first solo
recording in 1985: The New Strung Harp. Though other harp players
were exploring the potential of the instrument in similar ways
throughout the 1970s, this recording was the first of its kind. By this
time her techniques were fairly well developed and thought out, and
the recording provided an inspiration to many.
At present living in Yorkshire, her musical activities are generally

performance related, with worldwide concert tours in collaboration
with the guitarist Chris Newman. Her main teaching commitment is
at the Cáirde Na Cruite annual harp course, where she is tutor for the
advanced class. The writer is choosing to focus a chapter on the style
and technique of this particular harp player because of her high level
of virtuosity, and her considerable influence on young traditional
harp players, especially in terms of her recordings and published
arrangements.
79
Two of the tunes on Ní Chathasaigh’s recording The New Strung
Harp had appeared on ‘Planxty’’s The Well Below the Valley, the
four-part jig ‘The Humours of Ballyloughlin’, referred to above, and
‘The Fisherman’s Hornpipe’, testament to that album’s influence.
The writer found it interesting to compare the two versions of the
former tune on each album, to ascertain how Ní Chathasaigh has
chosen to interpret the music on the harp. Piper Liam O’Flynn’s
highly ornamented playing with abundant cuts, rolls and crans135 is
flowing, yet rhythmically pronounced (♫ 12) (see transcription,
figure 20).136 A legato effect is difficult to produce on the gut or
nylon strung harp, owing to the fact that from the moment a note is
articulated, the sound begins to decay. Therefore, this highly
decorated piping style would be inappropriate on the harp and would
result in a confused, cluttered and unrhythmical melodic line. The
ornaments are therefore much sparser in Ní Chathasaigh’s version (♫
13) (see transcription, figure 21).137 A type of roll known as a ‘triplet
roll’138 in bars 6 and 8 has replaced the more complicated cut-and-tip
roll and cran of the piping version. All the ornaments are played very
lightly, at times almost inaudibly, so as not to detract from the main
melody notes.
In the repeat of the first section of the tune Ní Chathasaigh

introduces variations in the ornamentation and the melody, a feature
highly idiomatic of traditional dance music (♫ 14) (see figure 22).
135
Musical ornaments intrinsic to Irish traditional music. A ‘cut’ is an upper grace
note played very lightly and quickly before the main melody note. Similar to this
is a ‘tip’, which uses a lower note as the grace note. This is much less common and
is generally only used in fiddle playing. A ‘roll’ consists of a note being
ornamented in the following way: the main note, a cut, the main note again, a tip,
and finally the main note again, all in rapid succession (see bar 6 of the pipes
transcription above). It may occur at the beginning of a shorter note, or towards the
end of a longer note. A ‘cran’ is a note ornamented by two or more cuts (see pipes
transcription in figure 22, bars 2, 7 and 8) and is idiomatic to pipe music, though
some players have introduced it on the flute and whistle. It usually occurs on the
bottom note of the chanter (D), to add colour to the note, on which it is impossible
to perform a roll in the usual way.
136
From ‘Planxty’: The Well below the Valley (Shanachie Records: SH 79010).
137
From Ní Chathasaigh, Máire: The New Strung Harp (Temple Records: COMD
2019).
138
This is not to be confused with the triplet of conventional notation, in which all
three notes have equal value. In traditional music the meaning of a triplet is simply
three unison notes played in rapid succession. It is occasionally known as a
‘treble’.
80
Ballyloughlin’, played by piper Liam O’Flynn

Ballyloughlin’, played by Máire Ní Chathasaigh
Figure 22: Transcription of Máire Ní Chathasaigh’s performance of

the repeat of the first section of ‘The Humours of Ballyloughlin’,
with variations indicated
81
The variations occur in bars 1, 3,5,6 and 7. The melodic variation in
bar 6 is particularly interesting, and acts as a focal point. It is a kind
of ornament which is particularly idiomatic to fiddle-playing139
(though it also occurs in O’Flynn’s piping version), in which the note
which would normally be accented at the beginning of the bar is
delayed by placing the emphasis on the note below.
The arrangement of the tune is uncomplicated, in accordance with

the Irish traditional dance music practice in which the melody has
prime importance. The left hand almost entirely throughout imitates
the pipe drone, except in the third part of the jig (♫ 15) where the
simple harmony reflects the use of the regulators in the
corresponding part of the piping version (♫ 16).
Ní Chathasaigh plays the four-part jig twice on the recording, and the
result is a convincing and imaginative performance. However,
because the whole is virtually at the same dynamic level, the rhythm,
and what is often known as the ‘lift’ in Irish traditional dance music,
are not always maintained (♫ 17). Although dynamics in traditional
music are not used in the same way as in western art music, where
they define whole phrases,140 the use of accents within the bar is
quite common. These are much more pronounced in Ní
Chathasaigh’s later performances, for example in the jig ‘Paddy
Whack’ from her most recent recording Dialogues,141 in
collaboration with the guitarist Chris Newman (♫ 18). This
treatment of the tune greatly facilitates the flow of the music and
gives it more meaning.
In Ní Chathasaigh’s advanced harp class at the Cáirde Na Cruite

festival attended by the writer, she put great emphasis on achieving
this aspect of musical style in the reel ‘The Pullet’. She described
139
Source: interview with harper and fiddle player Fionnuala Rooney (see chapter
15).
140
See Carson, Ciarán: Pocket Guide to Irish Traditional Music (Belfast, 1986),
10-11, and Breathnach, Breandán: Folk Music and Dances of Ireland (Cork and
Dublin, 1971), 89-90.
141
Ní Chathasaigh, Máire, and Newman, Chris: Dialogues (Old Bridge Music
OBMCD14).
82
what she wanted to hear from her students as a ‘shifting, rolling
effect in the rhythm’, using accents on certain notes to take the
emphasis off the melodic ornamentation, which should be played
very lightly. The students were working from Ní Chathasaigh’s own
notated arrangement, part of which is given in figure 23,142 with
some of her suggested accented notes indicated. The syncopation
achieved between the end of the first bar and the beginning of the
second, emphasised by the absence of a note in the left hand on the
first beat of the second bar, sounded particularly effective.
Ní Chathasaigh partly attributes her success when developing ways

of playing dance music on the harp, to the fact that she had very
clear artistic ideas about what she wanted to achieve:
You hear a sound in your head and you try to get as

close to what you hear in your head…if you’re not
clear about it in your head, it’ll never come out in
your fingers.
However, as a young teenager playing dance music in competitions,

she related to the writer that very often she would break down in the
middle of a performance, a fact which she now attributes to poor
technique: ‘My artistic ideas were far in advance of my technical
ability.’ At the age of twenty she embarked on two years of pedal
harp training with Denise Kelly at the Cork School of Music, and she
believes that this gave her a solid grounding and enabled her playing
to have much greater security. In the attached extract of the video
Celtic Harpestry,143 her classically influenced technique is evident.
The harp is placed high on her shoulder, the thumb is high and
142
Source: NíChathasaigh, Máire: The Irish Harper, Volume one (Ilkley, 1991),
26. In accordance with common practice for a reel, it is written in common time,
but it should be noted that it was actually being played as if in 12/8 time, thus:
143
Celtic Harpestry: Live from Lismore Castle, Ireland, Polygram Video 440 079
319-3, 1998.
83
Figure 23: Arr. Ní Chathasaigh: ‘The Pullet’ (extract), with her
suggested accented notes indicated
84
articulated fully except when used for ornamentation (see below),
and the fingers make contact with the palm after pulling the string.
The hands are bent slightly at the wrist, the fingers point downwards
and the elbows are extended.
While Ní Chathasaigh’s technique is largely derived from the pedal

harp, she has modified it somewhat in relation to Irish traditional
music ornamentation. As noted above in the extract on technique
from Larchet-Cuthbert’s Irish Harp Book, a rounded tone is
produced by pulling the fingers into the palm, and by relaxing the
thumb onto the side of the index finger after the string has been
played. However, Ní Chathasaigh has devised a way of playing a cut
in Irish traditional music (invariably played with the thumb) with a
technique which she describes as ‘half-action’:
The cut serves a rhythmic function in Irish music. It

must not ‘jump out’ in a manner which causes it to
attract undue attention to itself. A contrast in tone
between the cut and the note which is being
decorated is necessary in order to create the right
effect…the thumb when drawn across does not make
contact with the side of the index finger in the usual
manner but stops short of it, resulting in the
production of a somewhat dead tone. If the finger
which plays the note which is being decorated is
pulled right back the whole way into the palm, the
resultant rich tone will contrast well with that
produced by the thumb.144
Not all Irish harp players employ this technique, however. Aine Ní
Dhuill, the tutor for pedal and Irish harps at the Royal Irish Academy
of music in Dublin, explained that her strong background of classical
technique makes it difficult not to fully articulate the thumb. She
simply plays the cut more quietly than the note being decorated.
However, the writer would agree with Ní Chathasaigh that a ‘half-
action’ produces a note in which the upper harmonics are absent, and
this dryer tone, lacking in resonance, has a more authentically
traditional sound. After all, a cut performed on a fiddle or flute, for
144
Ní Chathasaigh, Máire: The Irish Harper, Volume one (Ilkley, 1991), 3.
85
example, does not ring out after it has been played. On the harp it is
not a question of simply playing the note quieter. Consideration
should also be given to tone quality and resonance.
The execution of a triplet roll has also come under scrutiny by Ní

Chathasaigh. This ornament, a distinguishing feature of Donegal
fiddling,145 has also become very idiomatic to traditional dance music
played on the harp. A favourite fingering for many contemporary
players is 4,3,2,146 performed as a ‘flick’ of the fingers. Ní
Chathasaigh favours instead the use of 2,1,2, the damping by the
thumb in the middle of the ornamentation resulting in a sound akin
to the occasional ‘stuttering’ effect produced by the pipes, for
example in the above extract by Liam O’Flynn (figure 20, bar 5).
The writer attended a workshop given by Ní Chathasaigh at

Chetham’s School of Music, Manchester to pedal harp students, with
the aim of introducing them to a different harp tradition. They were
advanced students who were unfamiliar with the traditional Irish
music idiom. All of them had great difficulty in the correct stylistic
execution of a cut, and considerable time was spent on achieving the
difference in tone quality and dynamic between the cut and the note
being decorated, as described above, in the tune ‘Walsh’s
Hornpipe’(figure 24147). Similar difficulty was found in achieving the
elusive, subtle, almost inaudible qualities of the ornaments in bars 10
and 11 in Ní Chathasaigh’s arrangement of Carolan’s ‘Eleanor
Plunkett’(figure 25148). This emphasised to the writer that while a
solid grounding in classical technique is recommended by many Irish
harp players, it can never serve the needs of the music entirely. Ní
Chathasaigh does believe, however, that players should
145
See Breathnach, Breandán: Folk Music and Dances of Ireland (Cork and
Dublin, 1971), 92.
146
Fingering on the harp is the same as on the piano, ie. the thumb is represented
as 1, forefinger 2 and so on.
147
Extract from Ní Chathasaigh, Máire: The Irish Harper, Volume one (Ilkley,
1991), 8.
148
Extract from Ní Chathasaigh, Máire: The Irish Harper, Volume two (Ilkley,
2001), 38.
86
Figure 24: Arr. Ní Chathasaigh: ‘Walsh’s Hornpipe’
87
Figure 25: Arr. Ní Chathasaigh: Carolan’s ‘Eleanor Plunkett’
88
have a good understanding of correct classical technique before
attempting to adapt it.
89
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Style and technique: Janet Harbison
Harbison was born in Dublin in 1955. In 1966 the Irish harp became
the main focus of her interest, leading to successes in major
competitions throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, including the
Feis Ceoil and the All-Ireland Fleadh. Teaching was also a
significant part of her life. She established summer schools for the
Irish harp, holding the first in 1982, and also formed Cláirseóirí na
hÉireann149 in 1984 in Dublin, for the support of traditional harp
players. In the same year she moved to Belfast, developed her
teaching in Northern Ireland and continued to visit Dublin once a
month for sessions at Cláirseóirí na hÉireann.
In 1992 the Belfast Harp Orchestra was founded by Harbison, as a

result of the bicentennial celebrations of the Belfast Harp Festival of
1792. It was a group of young, mainly Northern Irish,
instrumentalists, singers and dancers, 20 of whom were harp players,
with many doubling on other instruments. Their repertoire was
varied, and consisted of Harbison’s own arrangements of traditional
Irish tunes and songs, together with her own compositions. Massed
harps used in this way produce a rich, dramatic sound, as can be
heard in the recording of ‘MacAllistrum’s March’ (♫ 19).150
In 1993 Harbison developed an examination system for Irish harp

(described in Appendix IV), followed later by a teachers’ course. In
early 2003 she moved to Limerick, where she established ‘The Irish
Harp Centre’, a base for her extensive regular teaching and summer
schools. She still directs a harp ensemble (‘The Irish Harp
Orchestra’), though its membership is different from the original
Belfast Harp Orchestra, as the musicians in the latter group are now
149
‘The Irish Harpers’ Association’. This was held at the same premises in Dublin
as Na Píobairí Uilleann (‘pipers’ club), established for the support, teaching and
promotion of the uilleann pipes by Brendan Breathnach in 1968.
150
From ‘The Chieftains’: The Celtic Harp: A Tribute to Edward Bunting with the
Belfast Harp Orchestra (RCA Victor: 09026 61490 2). This album received a
Grammy Award.
90
in their twenties and early thirties, and many are now established
performers and teachers in their own right.
Harbison has been chosen by the writer for particular focus in this
chapter due to her considerable importance and influence as a
teacher, and for developing a distinctive and innovative technique of
playing the Irish harp that has been widely adopted by many young
players.
It was noted above that Janet Harbison began playing dance music
on the harp at around the same time as Máire Ní Chathasaigh.
However, she developed a style of playing which owes very little, if
anything, to classical technique. The tuition she received from
Máirín Ní Shé at Sion Hill did not include any technical guidance,
though she did gain ample creative encouragement which she
believes stood her in good stead, not only in terms of arranging and
composing music, but also in daring to question the accepted
‘correct’ classical technique when being applied to Irish traditional
music.
However, the process by which Harbison arrived at this point of

confidently challenging the norm was not a painless one. While a
music undergraduate at Trinity College, Dublin, she embarked on a
year’s tuition with pedal harpists Catríona Yeats151 and Mercedes
Garvey.152 She explained:
I had no idea. At this stage I thought the classical

technique was the one that was going to teach me
everything…I thought I’d better learn how to do it
right. [Catríona Yeats] spent a tortured four or five
months with me: getting my elbows up, getting my
thumbs up, turning my hands from this way [as if
holding a paper cup] to that way [thumbs up, fingers
down]…I’d say it was a real trial for her…at this
stage I thought I was the most appalling player on
earth.
151
Gráinne Yeats’ daughter.
152
A founder member of Cáirde Na Cruite.
91
Her confidence was restored somewhat under the tuition of
Mercedes Garvey, who expressed an interest in the music Harbison
was already playing, and suggested that she simply take from the
classical technique that which would enhance it.
At the end of this year Harbison reached the conclusion that the
classical technique had very little, if anything, to offer traditional
music:
The year taught me two things: number one, that the

classical technique does it differently, and number
two, no way with the classical technique could you
ever hope, or expect, to play traditional music…I
made the conscious decision not to go with the new
technique that I had learned.
She explained the reasoning behind her adamant stance to the writer,
as follows. The classical technique requires the harp player’s fingers
to be pointing downwards, with collapsed last joints, as shown in
figure 26. As already noted, after playing the string the finger is
pulled back into the palm of the hand. Harbison believes that these
features of the technique, which use muscles and tendons in the arm
and only minimally in the fingers, are not appropriate to the playing
of traditional music:
Everything in traditional music is in fingerwork and

in precision, and in finger muscles…To play with
collapsed last joints means that there’s no control
whatsoever in the musculature in the tip of the
finger. Classical technique- the weight is back.
You’re pulling, you’re not actually articulating the
finger muscles…You can’t get the kind of finesse
that you need if you’re pulling your fingers into the
back of your hand all the time…the fine articulation
that you would require to play ornamentation
absolutely does not happen.
Using the muscles in the fingers necessitates a completely different

hand position and shape to that required by the classical technique.
92
Figure 26: Classical technique hand and finger position
Figure 27: Harbison’s alternative hand and finger position for

playing traditional music
93
The difference is most pronounced in the right hand, which normally
plays the tune: fingers are curved inwards and the wrist straight, as
shown in figure 27.153 Furthermore, because the elbows are not
extended, the harp is placed much lower on the shoulder. These
different elements of Harbison’s technique can clearly be seen in the
attached extract of the video recording Celtic Harpestry.154 It also
shows that the same techniques are evident in her students in the
Belfast Harp Orchestra.
Harbison’s style of playing is more ornamented than Máire Ní

Chathasaigh’s, as exemplified by her rendition of the three-part
‘Harling’s Jig’ (♫ 20) (see figure 28).155 This is particularly evident
in the third part of the tune, where many quavers falling on a weak
beat are preceded with rapid, three-note descending runs. A similar
figure, in an ascending version, can be heard in the second part of the
tune, bar 2.
In this jig, Harbison gives careful attention to very light execution of

the ornaments, and to the considered choice of accented melody
notes; this ensures that the tune does not remain at one dynamic level
throughout. The use of a syncopated left-hand accompaniment adds
energy and impetus. These qualities prevent the arrangement from
becoming cluttered. However, at times the left hand becomes too
prominent and detracts from the melody. There is also a confusing
moment towards the end, where the syncopation and melodic
variation become over-complicated (♫ 21).
In the writer’s opinion, there is an extrovert, even rumbustious

quality to Harbison’s style at times, which does not enhance the
performance and is often at the expense of clarity and accuracy in
153
The writer’s hand demonstrates the two hand positions in figures 26 and 27.
154
Celtic Harpestry: Live from Lismore Castle, Ireland, Polygram Video 440 079
319-3, 1998.
155
From Harbison, Janet: O’Neill’s Harper (BHO: CD002).
94
Figure 28: Transcription of Harbison’s playing of ‘Harling’s Jig’
(extract)
95
the melody. This can be heard in ‘O’Neill’s Cavalcade’ (♫ 22).156 It
would be tempting to attribute this to Harbison’s alternative
technique. However, by her own admission to the writer, she has not
devoted a large amount of time to achieving precision and accuracy
in fast tunes, rather having directed her energies to her many
teaching and compositional projects.
Nevertheless, many successful young performers on the Irish harp

today are graduates of Janet Harbison’s teaching, all individuals who
have adopted the same distinctive non-classical technique. Gráinne
Hambly is an excellent example. A former member of the Belfast
Harp Orchestra and now an eminent performer and teacher in her
own right, her playing has subtlety, beauty and precision. Her left-
hand accompaniments, while imaginative and occasionally
syncopated, lend support to, and do not cloud the melody, which
always retains prime importance. These qualities can be heard in her
performances of ‘The Rectory Reel’ (♫ 23) and ‘Martin Hardiman’s’
(♫ 24).157
156
Ibid.
157
Both from Hambly, Gráinne: Golden Lights and Green Shadows (Klang Welten
Records: CD 20019).
96
CHAPTER TWELVE
The response from the established musical organisations
In the 1970s, the early exponents of traditional dance music on the

harp inevitably provoked comment. It is interesting to compare the
reactions at this time of the two musical establishments referred to
previously in the study: Cáirde Na Cruite and Comhaltas. Máire Ní
Chathasaigh’s experience at the Pan-Celtic Festival in Killarney in
1971 illustrates one aspect of this. Gráinne Yeats, a founder member
of Cáirde Na Cruite, was the adjudicator for the Irish harp
competition at the festival. Ní Chathasaigh played her first tentative
renditions of dance tunes, and was awarded first prize, despite
breaking down in the tunes due to an insecure technique. She
recounted:
Gráinne was incredibly encouraging of what I was

trying to do…I was the first person to do this. That’s
why she gave me first prize, because it was new.
At this time Ní Chathasaigh was urged to gain a grounding in the

classical technique. Having followed this advice, she remarked in the
sleeve notes of The New Strung Harp, produced in 1985, that Yeats
had provided ‘unfailing kindness, advice and encouragement’. She
has been teaching traditional dance music on the Cáirde Na Cruite
summer school since its inception in 1986. In her interview she
commented:
When I was growing up, there were people in

Dublin who played the harp,158 but they were
completely separate from the oral tradition, which is
what I grew up in…they were two different worlds,
and they never met. Part of what I wanted to do was
to bring them together, to create a bridge.
Janet Harbison, however, spoke to the writer of overt disapproval by

the Cáirde Na Cruite at this time. In the light of Ní Chathasaigh’s
158
ie, Cáirde Na Cruite.
97
positive experience, it cannot be assumed that members of the
organisation were opposed to the playing of traditional dance music
on the Irish harp per se. Indeed, Gráinne Yeats has remarked:
I think that anything the Irish harpist wants to play is

alright by me. The more you extend your repertoire,
the better. And it’s certainly true of the old harpers,
that they tried to extend their repertoire, because that
was what their patrons wanted.
Two other factors were also involved, which eventually resulted in

Harbison forging a career and embarking on activities which remain
both separate from, and parallel to those of Cáirde Na Cruite to this
day.
The first factor was Harbison’s refusal to conform to the conventions

of the classical technique. In some ways Cáirde Na Cruite’s
disapproval of her alternative technique was understandable. They
were promoting a technique based on teaching and methodologies
employed by harpists for nearly two hundred years. They perhaps
perceived it as an arrogance that an individual should wish to
advocate such unorthodox methods.159 However the success of
Harbison’s students who compete in Fleadhanna, and of so many
contemporary young performers and teachers of the Irish harp, all of
whom are graduates of Harbison’s methods, speaks for itself.
As regards technique, the conclusion reached by the writer is as

follows. Janet Harbison’s belief that traditional music cannot be
played successfully by anyone using a classical technique, has little
basis; there are many harp players who play this genre of music with
a classical technique. Máire Ní Chathasaigh is a resounding example.
However, the last thirty years have provided evidence that
Harbison’s different but considered technique is an eminently valid
alternative for the successful playing of traditional music on the Irish
harp. Due to her importance and considerable influence as a teacher
159
Indeed, the writer, who has been receiving lessons on the pedal harp for only
four years, was instinctively suspicious while researching for this study, of the
suggestion that a different technique may be valid.
98
(compared to Ní Chathasaigh who has only seasonal teaching
commitments and, indeed, no longer lives in Ireland), it is very likely
that Harbison’s methods are the ones which will persist into the next
generations of traditional Irish harp players.
The other factor which proved contentious with Cáirde Na Cruite

was Harbison’s insistence on practising the oral tradition in her
teaching. As noted previously, the organisation was founded by
individuals having a background of western art music, to whom
expanding and publishing a repertoire for an instrument where none
had existed was an important objective. Máire Ní Chathasaigh’s
practice was and still is, as a tutor on the Cáirde Na Cruite course, to
use her own notated arrangements in her teaching. She published two
volumes of her own arrangements in 1991 and 2001 respectively,
and some of the individual items in her books date from as early as
1974.160
On the other hand, Harbison, although receiving a western art music

education and playing the piano to a high standard, wished to play
the Irish harp as a traditional instrument, and to play and teach it in
accordance with the methods commonly used to teach other
traditional instruments. She went a step further, believing that it was
insufficient to learn a tune by rote, even by ear. In the interview with
the writer she made a comparison with learning a language:
It’s all very well to learn pieces of poetry in a

foreign language, and go and perform them, and
they’re the most convincing pieces of native
literature, and the natives will probably understand,
but if somebody came up to the performer
afterwards, they wouldn’t have a clue, because they
wouldn’t be able to speak back in the language.
They don’t understand the actual modus operandi of
the language. To me, parroting, learning by rote
either by ear or notation, is no different. It’s a copy
of something else with no understanding.
160
In the preliminary notes to the first volume she states: ‘a number [of these
arrangements] have been circulating in manuscript form for quite some time’.
99
There is truth in the fact that the oral tradition is not defined merely
by the lack of musical notation. Indeed, the writer has participated in
harp workshops that were fully or partly conducted without the use
of printed music. Instructions such as ‘put your thumb, second and
third fingers on B, A and G. Play the G and the A, but before you
play the B with your thumb place your third finger on the C’ were
quite common. This was obviously no less learning by rote than if
the notation had been used. Indeed, it would have been much clearer
and more helpful if one had had access to the printed music, on
which fingering and placing brackets were marked.
There is also a danger that an over-reliance on learning a tune in

sections according to the placing of fingers will result in unevenness
of phrasing and rhythm. It is part of harp technique (both classical
and that taught by Janet Harbison) that fingers should be placed and
prepared on the strings in groups, not individually. In an ascending
passage, a finger is often passed under the thumb, and the whole
hand is then moved up ready to place the fingers in a group again.
The same principle applies to a descending passage, where the
thumb passes over the fingers. It is inevitable that this passing under
with the finger or over with the thumb will not always coincide with
the beginning of a phrase or group of notes. It is vital therefore that
this action must be carried out as smoothly as possible, and the harp
player must gain a sense of the whole phrase. The visual notated
representation of the musical phrase may help in this, as will having
an internal knowledge of the tune before attempting to play it. As
Máire Ní Chathasaigh remarked to the writer: ‘If you can’t hear it in
your head, it won’t come out in your hands’.
Janet Harbison makes a valid point in stressing the importance of

learning the ‘language’ of the music in the teaching of any traditional
instrument. Several well-known performers, including Alan Stivell,
may play technically accurate renditions of Irish tunes, but with a
lack of real understanding of the musical language, and the result is
shallow and characterless. Furthermore, even assuming the harp
100
player is of a good standard both technically and in terms of
musicianship, this does not guarantee that he or she will be able to
perform traditional music well. This was emphasised to the writer at
the Cáirde Na Cruite harp course, when a participant, an American
professional pedal harpist, asked Máire Ní Chathasaigh, who was
teaching the advanced class, to explain the difference between a reel
and a hornpipe, which are both notated with the time signature 4/4.
Obviously it is not sufficient to state that a reel is faster and hornpipe
is played as if in 12/8 time, since slow reels and fast hornpipes exist,
and a reel can often share the 12/8 rhythm of a hornpipe. Ní
Chathasaigh explained that the hornpipe has an intrinsic character,161
with a rhythm described by as ‘precise’ and ‘four-square’, and that
the cadences are often marked
with the rhythmic motif: . The

American harpist remarked after the class that he was still very
unclear as to the distinction. The writer would suggest that the
difference is difficult to explain in simple terms, but certainly a
person who has been immersed in the tradition and who has
developed fluency in the musical language, would have an
instinctive understanding of the differences in character and style
between a reel and a hornpipe.
Therefore, it seems that rote learning versus learning the language of

the music is the issue, not the use of notation. Providing one uses
notation only as a guide, and learns to ornament, vary and arrange
the music stylistically and instinctively by oneself, through the
gaining of an overall traditional music education, it should not have
a detrimental effect on one’s playing.
As regards the reaction of Comhaltas to the playing of traditional

music on the Irish harp in the 1970s, it is interesting that Máire Ní
Chathasaigh and Janet Harbison both testified to considerable
support from that organisation. Ní Chathasaigh commented:
161
See also Breathnach, Breandán: Folk Music and Dances of Ireland (Dublin and
Cork, 1971), 59-63.
101
I couldn’t have got more attention or encouragement
from the Irish music establishment at the time. There
was no resistance at all; people were very excited
about this new thing…People said they never knew
the harp could do that or could sound like that. It
opened up the possibilities to them of what a harp
could do.
The Comhaltas summer school, the Scoil Éigse, began in 1973. In

1976 the Irish harp was taught on the course for the first time, by
Máire Ní Chathasaigh. Séamus MacMathuna related the following
memory to the writer:
I can remember, because I had known Máire Ní

Chathasaigh as a young girl, and she was doing
wonderful things. I remember the first year the harp
was included in the Scoil Éigse. We would normally
have recitals at some stage. There wasn’t an
expectant hush for the harp, because people hadn’t
heard Máire playing. But mind you, once she
started! Within that week, a whole lot of young
people changed their attitude to the harpers…A
whole lot of people just accepted it straight away.
There were things happening on the harp!
Comhaltas have a group of young musicians, with the object of

promoting Irish traditional music through tours of Ireland, Britain
and the USA. The first harp player on a Comhaltas tour was Janet
Harbison in 1983, and MacMathuna related to the writer that since
then many major harp players have toured with the group, such as
Máire Ní Chathasaigh, Michael Rooney and Gráinne Hambly.
The acceptance by Comhaltas of the ‘traditional’ Irish harp indicates

that though their approach is purist, they are not so much concerned
with the type of instrument being played as to the kind of music
being played on it, and in the style of the performance.162 As
observed by Ciarán Carson:
162
MacMathuna related that the piano accordian and the banjo were going through
a similar process of acceptance in the 1970s.
102
There is no such thing as a traditional instrument. An
instrument is only the means to an end; in this case,
the production of traditional music.163
163
Carson, Ciarán: Pocket Guide to Irish Traditional Music (Belfast, 1986), 11.
103
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A meeting of minds
It has been established in this study that significant changes have

taken place in world of the Irish harp since Cáirde Na Cruite’s
formation in 1960, both in terms of the instrument itself and in its
repertoire and manner of performance. This chapter will explore the
extent to which values and practices of the principal promoters of the
Irish harp have merged in the present day, with particular reference
to how these changes have manifested themselves in the summer
school attended by the writer.
One of Aibhlín McCrann’s main objectives in her 11-year history as

organiser of the Cáirde Na Cruite harp course has been to promote
the instrument’s status in mainstream Irish traditional music. For
example, one evening concert was given by 11 members of the
Armagh Pipers’ Club and their sister organisation the Armagh
Harpers’ Association, together with the latter’s founder Patricia Daly
and the fiddler Gerry O’Connor. This was followed by an informal
session in which all these individuals participated, many playing on
second or third instruments such as fiddle, flute and whistle.
McCrann observed:
18 years ago you wouldn’t have had a night like that

here. You wouldn’t have had a night where
traditional musicians were prepared to come into
town and play, and be part of it. That has been a
major turnabout, and that has been engineered
deliberately. It has been part of the policy and
approach that I take….18 years ago the people who
were spearheading the initiative…would have had a
different focus, by virtue of the fact that they were
the harp players of the ’fifties, ’sixties and early
’seventies, who just had a different style of playing.
It is noteworthy that Cáirde Na Cruite is no longer as fixed in its

views regarding technique as it was at the organisation’s inception.
Over the last several years, former students of Janet Harbison, now
104
in their twenties, have made themselves very visible through their
own performing and teaching activities. In fact three of them,
Gráinne Hambly, Laoise Kelly and Fionnuala Rooney, played in
evening concerts at the Cáirde Na Cruite course attended by the
writer. In addition, students of these individuals, inheriting Janet
Harbison’s technique, now participate in the course. Aibhlín
McCrann remarked:
Different people have evolved their own way of

playing the music, and that’s fine….You don’t want
to change something if it’s sounding good, if it’s
working for them….Why would you try to inhibit
something if it’s working?…I don’t think we should
be hung up on classical technique for the sake of
classical technique; it’s what we can take from that
technique which is going to improve our rendition of
Irish music…I wouldn’t be dogmatic about it…at
the end of the day what we want to get across is the
music.
On observing the different classes at the harp course, the writer was
surprised at the apparent lack of focus on technique at all, and the
fact that obviously undesirable practices were not being corrected.
For example, the writer observed one girl whose thumb was too low,
and the fingers were being placed individually instead of being
prepared in advance. However, the writer did subsequently learn that
the girl was moved into a less advanced class for the remainder of
the course, the tutor, Cormac DeBarra, having been well aware of the
problems with the girl’s technique. He also explained to the writer
that he is flexible in his teaching, and that if a student is obviously
struggling with memorising a tune, for instance, he would
temporarily delay addressing problems with technique.
Another reason for the priority of tunes over technique, is that

nowadays many more students have a regular teacher. In 1986, the
year of the first Cáirde Na Cruite summer school, fewer teachers
existed, and in many cases Cáirde’s summer school and that
provided by Janet Harbison constituted the only week of tuition in a
105
whole year. The maps in figure 29 indicate the main centres of harp
tuition in 1986 compared to today.164
In terms of technique, the focus has now changed at the Cáirde Na

Cruite course. While it is still considered important (though not
necessarily obviously so), the balance is in favour of broadening
repertoire and knowledge, playing in an appropriate style and
making music together. In the current climate of varying but equally
valid techniques, the writer would consider these priorities to be
relevant.
Cáirde Na Cruite are now also much more flexible in their views
regarding the use of notation. It is left to the discretion of individual
tutors at the summer school; some use it all the time, some in part,
and some not at all. Many students bring tape recorders to aid their
memory of the tunes. Aibhlín McCrann expressed a positive view of
the use of notated music:
I firmly believe that it’s important to cultivate a good

ear, but also to read music, because harpers have to
arrange their own music. If you want to arrange
something that you like the sound of and you want
to perpetuate it, you may as well be able to chord it
and arrange it, and put something creative together,
and write it down.
Furthermore, McCrann observed that much printed music for the

harp exists in old manuscripts, such as Bunting’s, and that this is
another good reason for musical literacy: ‘What is the point in
playing the harp if you can’t fit it within the context of appreciation
of what the harper’s tradition was? I don’t believe it’s just dance
music’.
164
The data on the maps was obtained from:
Interviews with Janet Harbison, Aibhlín McCrann, Patricia Daly, Kim Fleming and
Fionnuala Rooney.
Websites: www.belfastharps.com, www.irishharpcentre.com,
www.armaghharpers.com.
Maher, Tom: The Harp’s a Wonder (Mullingar, 1991), 107-110.
106
1986 2003
Garvagh
Glencolmcille
Belfast
Belfast
Armagh
Monaghan
Sligo
Keadue
Granard
Granard Nobber
Termonfeckin Claremorris Termonfeckin

Mullingar Mullingar
Dublin
Dublin
Castleconnell
Wexford
summer schools
regular tuition
Figure 29: Maps indicating the numbers of centres for Irish harp tuition in 1986,
compared to today
107
In terms of using the oral tradition on the course as advocated by
Janet Harbison, that is, learning by language and not merely by rote,
there was little evidence. As regards arranging harp tunes as opposed
to playing fixed arrangements, there was one workshop for all
participants in which some guidelines were given, and another on
appropriate harp accompaniment for singing. The writer felt that a
specific arranging course for advanced students would have been
beneficial. Máire Ní Chathasaigh’s guidance on appropriate stylistic
playing in terms of ornamentation and accents was excellent, but
generally on the course music was learnt by rote, with or without
notation. However, the writer acknowledges that the oral tradition is
an ongoing process and a language cannot be learnt in five days. The
real benefit of this method of education can only be realized through
regular teaching.
As reflected in the internet advertisement for the harp course,165 the

aim is to offer tuition in all the various strands of the Irish harp
tradition, including music of the harpers, dance music, singing to
harp accompaniment and the wire strung harp. In reality, the
programme of classes and events in such a course will in part
inevitably represent the musical tastes of the participants, for
example, the lack of a wire-strung harp class, for which there was no
demand.
However, all tutors are eager to promote music from the harping
tradition, despite a general lack of enthusiasm, especially from the
younger generation. Patricia Daly, whose daughter participated in the
harp course, attested to this outlook:
Nearly all my life I avoided playing music out of the

harping tradition. I only wanted to play dance music.
Now a lot of young harpers coming up are doing
exactly the same thing as me: they’re avoiding those.
And really, there’s a deep, deep well of beautiful
tunes written for the harp, that when they’re nicely
arranged can be very, very beautiful.
165
http://www.harp.net/CnaC/CnaCfest.htm, consulted on 15.07.03.
108
Similarly, Tracey Fleming enthused:
I think we have to keep the broader picture in mind.

Some of the harp music is just incredible music. It
has to be played. It’s just crying out to be played.
While it is true that these pieces originate in the wire harp tradition,
the writer would agree that this instrument need not have exclusive
ownership of the repertoire. Modern Irish harp players, and indeed
other musicians, should not be denied exposure to this genre of
music; a balanced programme of tuition should include it, so that the
student will at least be made aware of its existence and have the
opportunity to broaden his or her repertoire and knowledge of the
history of the Irish harp. Sympathetic arrangements are possible, for
example Gráinne Hambly’s version of ‘Celia Connellan’ by the
seventeenth century harper-composer Thomas Connellan.166 Hambly
has avoided an elaborate, Romantic arrangement, and interest is
created in the piece by irregular accenting and phrasing contained
within a regular framework of two eight-bar sections (♫ 25).
At the Cáirde Na Cruite course, no class existed at any level for the
genre inspired by western art music, for example classical
arrangements of Irish tunes, transcriptions of art music repertoire as
favoured by Anne-Marie O’Farrell, or contemporary pieces such as
T. C. Kelly’s ‘Interlude’ (figure 15). Informal conversations with
adult participants, however, did reveal an interest in this kind of
repertoire, and the lack of classes suggests that Cáirde Na Cruite
does not wish to promote it. If this is so, it is another indication of
the significant change in the values of the organisation since its
formation in 1960. The writer would suggest that an evaluation
questionnaire at the end of the week for participants to give their
views about this or other aspects of the course, may be something for
Cáirde Na Cruite to consider in the future.
166
From the recording Hambly, Gráinne: Golden Lights and Green Shadows
(Klang Welten: CD 20019). The liner notes state that this piece was notated by
Bunting at the Belfast Harp Festival in 1792 and published as a piano arrangement
in his 1840 collection.
109
A low demand for singing with harp accompaniment resulted in only
five students receiving individual lessons from Gráinne Yeats. Yeats’
interest lies both in songs from the harping tradition such as
‘Sgarúint na gCompánach’167 by Carolan, and in songs from the
Séan-Nos168 tradition with harp accompaniment. She expressed her
disappointment to the writer that the upsurge in interest in the
playing of dance music on the harp has resulted in these songs being
neglected. However, she believes the current state of affairs
regarding musical tastes to be a fashion, and that ‘the pendulum will
swing back again, and people will sing to the harp’.
Similarly, Séamus MacMathuna from Comhaltas regrets the current

unpopularity of Gaelic singing. He acknowledges that Séan-Nos is
an unaccompanied tradition, but would nevertheless have no
objection to harp accompaniment for these songs if it would
encourage more people to sing and listen to them. This can be heard
to excellent effect in the singing of Seosaimhín Ní Bheaglaoich, the
Kerry Séan-Nos singer, in the performance of the love song ‘Bean
Dubh an Ghleanna’, with sympathetic and understated arpeggio harp
accompaniment from Janet Harbison (♫ 26).169
The most important fact discovered by the writer, however, is that

the course reflects a significant interest in the playing of traditional
dance music by the younger generation. It was taught from
intermediate level upwards, and six out of seven advanced students
on the course were young ‘tune players’.170 This is a telling
indication of the current direction of the pendulum, and a possible
glimpse into the future for the instrument.
167
‘The Parting of Friends’.
168
Literally translated as ‘old style’, a form of unaccompanied singing in the Irish
language.
169
From Ní Bheaglaoich, Seosaimhín: Taobh na Gréine/Under the Sun (Gael-Linn
CEFCD 170).
170
This is a term often used by harp players to signify those whose main interest is
in playing traditional dance music.
110
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Promotion by Comhaltas
The fact that the Irish harp has been taught on the Scoil Éigse since
1976, and also on a regular basis at several Comhaltas branches, has
already been noted. While a dramatic increase in harp activities in
the last 20 years is obvious, it is important to view this in
perspective, in the context of the status of the more established
traditional instruments. The fiddle provides a useful comparison,
having been used to play dance music in Ireland since at least the
eighteenth century,171 and its current status as the mainstay of Irish
traditional music was emphasised to the writer by the fact that it was
by far the most commonly played instrument in all of the nine pub
sessions attended when researching this study.172 Séamus
MacMathuna provided the writer with approximate figures relating
to the numbers attending the Scoil Éigse. At present about 600 pupils
participate overall, with an average of only 20 Irish harp students
(about 3.5%). This is in marked contrast to the fiddle classes, which
usually attract about 150 participants (about 25%). MacMathuna
believes this to be indicative of the overall numbers learning the Irish
harp compared to other traditional instruments at Comhaltas
branches throughout Ireland.
As regards the competitions at the Fleadh Cheoil Na hÉireann,173 the

difference in numbers between the harp and other instruments is not
so marked. For instance, the total number competing in each of the
four age groups for the harp in 2003 was 48, while the number for
fiddle was 56.174 The list of entrants for each competition consists of
the first and second place prizewinners from regional Fleadhanna in
171
1971), 80.
172
Three of the sessions were at the Ulster Fleadh in Warrenpoint, Co. Down,
26.07.03, and the remaining six were at the Traditional Irish Music Weekend in
Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny, 01.08.03.
173
All-Ireland Fleadh.
174
Source: Programme of the 2003 Fleadh Cheoil Na hÉireann (Dublin, 2003).
111
Ireland and abroad (mainly Britain and the USA). While it is
important that the harp competitions have reached near full
capacity,175 the significance of this fact should not be exaggerated, as
the figures do not take into account the numbers competing at
regional and provincial level. Statistics of relevance are scarce, but
the number of competitors for harp at the 2003 Ulster Fleadh,
attended by the writer was 22, compared to 65 for fiddle. In addition,
this does not take into account the separate class for fiddle slow air.
In view of Séamus MacMathuna’s comments regarding the relative
numbers of harp pupils to more established traditional instruments, it
can generally be assumed that competitors for the latter are
significantly more numerous at provincial and regional Fleadhanna,
and that therefore competition is much fiercer.
There is no recognition by Comhaltas of the broader repertoire of the

Irish harper in terms of historical harp tunes, in the Fleadhanna. The
requirements are the same as for other instruments, that is, to play
from the following list (depending on age group): a jig, a reel, a
hornpipe and a slow air; the instrument’s broader repertoire is not
acknowledged. No competitive classes exist either for the Irish
harp’s role as an accompanying instrument, either for the voice or as
part of an ensemble. Furthermore, Janet Harbison claims that in her
experience, competitors do not generally receive credit for the
quality of original harmonic arrangements (obviously an issue which
does not concern most other instruments), and suggests that
adjudicators are more concerned with a polished performance.
The same problems exist concerning the Comhaltas syllabus of

traditional music examinations. The organisation has granted
‘traditional’ status to the Irish harp, in that it can follow the same
syllabus as, say, the fiddle or flute, but it has failed to acknowledge
the qualities particular to that instrument in regard to repertoire and
ability to produce harmonic arrangements.
175
Janet Harbison related that when she competed in the 1970s, there were very
few entrants per class.
112
Other Comhaltas activities which involve the harp include
performances by the traditional music entertainment group ‘Brú
Ború’,176 and the group of young touring musicians previously
mentioned. The profile of the instrument in these ensembles is
somewhat paradoxical. For example, the writer attended a concert
given by ‘Brú Ború’ in August, 2002. The harp player was placed on
a raised platform in the middle of the stage, surrounded by the other
musicians, as illustrated in a promotional leaflet (figure 30). In terms
of appearance, the instrument therefore seemed to have considerable
importance. On the front of another leaflet a photograph of a harp
has been chosen to represent the group (see figure 31). However, as
regards the music played, the harp clearly receded into the
background. Its primary function was to produce chordal
accompaniment to the tunes being played, but even that could hardly
be heard. The writer’s impression was that the harp’s function was a
purely visual one.
As regards the music played by the group of young musicians on

Comhaltas tours, the evidence provided by the cassette tape
produced as a result of their North American Tour in 2000 suggests a
similar role for the harp. It has a high visual profile, in that a
photograph of Róisín Hambly177 is used for the front of the liner to
represent the whole group (see figure 32). As regards the music on
the tape, however, the harp’s role is decidedly subsidiary, with the
exception of one solo item. Nowhere on the tape does the harp play
the tune when it is part of a group. Unlike in ‘Brú Ború’ though,
some effort is made on this recording to allow chordal
accompaniments to be heard. They are quite often imaginative in
terms of syncopated rhythm and the choice of harmony, but
unfortunately the harp is slightly out of tune with the other
176
This group performs in concerts of instrumental music, song and dance in a
purpose-built theatre in Cashel, Co. Tipperary, mainly for the tourist market. The
musicians also tour worldwide.
177
Gráinne Hambly’s younger sister, and a student of Janet Harbison. She was the
winner of the 15-18 age group in the harp solo class of the All-Ireland Fleadh in
1998, and at the time of the Comhaltas tour recording was aged 17.
113
Figure 30: Front of ‘Brú Ború’’s promotional leaflet
Figure 31: Photograph from ‘Brú Ború’’s promotional leaflet
Figure 32: Photograph from the front of the Comhaltas tour (2000)
cassette tape
114
instruments, for example in the reel ‘The Steeplechase’ (♫ 27)178,
where it is used to accompany the fiddle and accordian. This serves
to highlight an important problem that relates more to the harp than
any other traditional instrument: considerable time and effort is
needed to ensure it is not only in tune with itself but also with the
rest of the group.
For the single solo item on the tape, it is significant that a dance tune
is used to represent the harp’s modern-day contribution to Irish
music. In the jig ‘The Gold Ring’, Hambly incorporates features
intrinsic to the genre that would be employed on other traditional
instruments, for example cuts, triplet rolls and melodic variation, in a
lively and rhythmic performance (♫ 28).179 Moreover, the accented
chords in the left hand are well placed, and are never obtrusive.
In the interview with the writer, Séamus MacMathuna remarked that

until the 1970s Comhaltas did not recognise the harp’s status as a
traditional instrument, and merely paid lip-service to it. From the
writer’s observations, however, this would in many ways appear to
be still the case. The playing of dance music is encouraged, but only
to a point, as its function is to provide accompaniment when part of
an ensemble. Moreover, the repertoire of historical harp tunes is
ignored, as is the instrument’s role in vocal accompaniment. At
present Comhaltas would seem to be more interested in the Irish
harp in terms of its use as an emblem and in providing visual impact,
than in its musical possibilities. This perception of the instrument has
echoes of the nineteenth century, when its relevance as a symbol was
greater than its importance as a musical instrument.
178
From Comhaltas Tour Group: We are the Musicmakers (Comhaltas Ceóiltoirí
Éireann: CL-56).
179
Ibid.
115
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
How valid is the Irish harp as a traditional instrument?
Ciarán Carson is disparaging of the Irish harp’s appropriation of

‘traditional’ status:
The harp is not regarded as a traditional instrument

by traditional musicians; it was hardly a folk
instrument anyway, since in its heyday it depended
on an elaborate system of patronage.180
Furthermore, he is remarkably dismissive of the many modern harp

players who perform dance music, alleging that the result is
‘“confused and disordered” to many ears’. This phrase is a quotation
of the twelfth-century commentator Giraldus Cambrensis181 who
applied it to the way in which the uneducated heard the music played
by the harpers. The writer is unclear as to the reason Carson uses this
phrase to describe dance music played on the harp today, as his
implication seems to be that it is ‘confused and disordered’ per se,
regardless of the musicality of the listener. However, he concludes
the section on the harp with the following remark:
If the harp is a symbol of Ireland, it is an Ireland that

finds itself uncomfortably balancing between two
stools.
One of Carson’s main objections to the modern gut-strung Irish harp

is that its players have ‘invented’ a tradition which bears no relation
to the historical wire-strung instrument. The writer would counter
this argument on the grounds that every tradition begins somewhere,
even that of the oldest instruments. Admittedly, however, there are
some problems faced by harp players choosing to follow the
‘traditional’ path, and this chapter will seek explore these and to
discover the validity of the Irish harp as a traditional instrument.
180
Carson, Ciarán: Pocket Guide to Irish Traditional Music (Belfast, 1986), 37.
181
The full passage of Cambrensis’ writings on the Irish harp is quoted on page 35
in the above book.
116
Two ways in which the Irish harp differs from most other traditional
instruments were highlighted by Patricia Daly. They are concerned
with the physical nature of the instrument itself and the implications
of its playing technique. Firstly, Daly argues that not every tune is
suitable for the harp, particularly those containing wide intervals.
Certainly, the intervals in some tunes would cause the hand to
‘jump’, thereby interrupting the flow of the music, for example in the
jig ‘Father Dollard’s Favorite (figure 33182). ‘Garret Barry’s Jig’
(figure 34183) is an example of a tune which lies more comfortably
under the fingers. However, in the writer’s opinion it is difficult to
find a tune in which the problem cannot be solved, either by
considering different fingering and placing combinations, or by
simply altering the group of notes, for instance by playing them in a
different octave. This is perfectly acceptable practice, and one that is
followed by other traditional musicians, for instance by a flute or
whistle player performing a tune that contains notes below the range
of their instrument.
The other difference between the Irish harp and most other
traditional instruments, as noted by Patricia Daly, is the fact that the
former does not lend itself easily to spontaneous ornamentation and
variation. This is because of the particular technique in harp playing
of preparing fingers in advance on the strings, which makes it
necessary, not merely to consider the ornament or variation on its
own, but also the fingering of the notes leading into or out of the
decoration. This requires a little more ‘thinking ahead’ than with
most other instruments, as Daly describes:
You really need to work out a bag of ornamentation

or variations, so you can pull an ornament or
variation out that has a fingering system sorted, set
that into your tune and rearrange the fingering
leading into and out of it. It’s like ‘cut and paste’,
you know!…Other instruments just flow into it, but
182
From ed. Capt. Francis O’Neill: O’ Neill’s Music of Ireland (Pacific, date
unknown), Mel Bay Publications, 140 (facsimile of original 1903 edition).
183
Arr. Fleming, Kim: ‘Garret Barry’s Jig’, Sounding Harps, book three (Dublin,
1994), 21.
117
Figure 33: ‘Father Dollard’s Favorite’
Figure 34: Arr. Kim Fleming: ‘Garret Barry’s Jig’
118
with the harp you have to prepare in advance and
then have them stored in your mind.
The other differences between the Irish harp and other instruments
are largely connected with the way in which it is perceived, by both
musicians (whether harp players or not), and non-musicians. The
instrument has always had a rarefied image, due firstly to its
aristocratic place in society historically, but also, more recently and
perhaps more relevantly, because of its portrayal by the ‘celebrity’
convent harpists such as Mary O’Hara who achieved veritable iconic
status, and the subsequent efforts of the early Cáirde Na Cruite to
raise the intellectual and cultural importance of the Irish harp. To a
degree the traditional Irish harp player has had to struggle against the
perception of the instrument as being different or in some way
special, and because of this it has often been sidelined. Though
Comhaltas has promoted the instrument somewhat, it could also be
argued that their treatment of the harp as described above, in
exploiting its visual impact at the expense of the music actually
played on it, contributes to the problem, and hinders its development
and acceptance by the general body of traditional musicians.
One obvious aspect that immediately sets the Irish harp apart from
other traditional instruments is the simple fact that the majority of its
players are female. As has already been noted, the feminine image
was already in place over 100 years ago as a result of the harp’s role
in the nineteenth-century drawing room, and it was certainly
consolidated throughout the twentieth century by the instrument’s
promotion by convent schools. Equally, Irish traditional music
generally has historically been male-dominated, with relatively few
female players coming to the fore for most of the twentieth century.
Even today the writer would suggest that a greater recognition is
119
given to male traditional musicians, particularly by the older
generation.184
Clearly, for today’s traditional Irish harper there are many years of
accumulated attitudes, beliefs and practices to contend with, not least
in terms of gender. The fact that the instrument is perceived to be
‘feminine’ undoubtedly raises issues of acceptance and recognition
by the general body of traditional musicians. Male harpers may carve
their niche in the Irish music establishment with greater ease, but
boys are less likely to be inclined or encouraged to begin learning
the instrument from the outset, unless other harp players exist in the
family. This was the case with Cormac De Barra, who is now a
respected and successful performer and teacher.185 However, in the
interview with the writer he admitted that despite encouragement
from his family, while at school he kept the fact that he played the
harp a secret, due to fears of taunting by peers.
The writer would suggest that determination and strength of

personality are especially important attributes for the male harp
player today. These qualities were evident in 15-year-old Fearghal
McCarton, interviewed at the Cáirde Na Cruite course. His
dedication to playing the harp is remarkable. Living in Newcastle,
co. Down, he travels to harp lessons from Gráinne Hambly, in
Claremorris, Co. Mayo, a distance of about 175 miles, staying in
youth hostels. This has occurred every school holiday and long
weekend for the past year, the time between spent regularly
practising, with the assistance of previously tape-recorded lessons.
The high standard of his playing after only five years of learning the
184
For example, when the writer initially contacted Séamus MacMathuna by
telephone in order to arrange an interview, he mentioned the names of two harp-
players who he suggested should also be interviewed. It was very interesting that
despite the fact that the majority of the most important and influential harp players
today are female, the harp players whose name MacMathuna gave were male:
Michael Rooney and Cormac De Barra.
185
De Barra was born in 1972, into a family of traditional and classical musicians,
including harp players. He was taught by his grandmother Róisín NíShe, and for
about the last ten years has played dance music due to the influence of Janet
Harbison and her students, and Máire Ní Chathasaigh. A former Feis Ceoil winner,
he, and was the adjudicator for the Irish harp competitions at the Ulster Fleadh
attended by the writer.
120
harp, with mostly irregular or non-existent tuition, is evidence of his
strong self-motivation. This is demonstrated in the writer’s recording
of a performance of his own arrangement of the reel The Mason’s
Apron (♫ 29), which has flair and sparkle. Ornaments are mostly
well-executed, and attention to detail in terms of variation is also
observed. McCarton’s single-mindedness is also evident in his
dismissive, almost defiant attitude towards ridicule from peers, as
shown by the following remark:
It doesn’t bother me at all. Some of them laugh at

me a bit, but then when they hear me playing the
harp they’re like ‘Oh, gosh, he CAN play! I never
knew he was that good’. So then they just give over
and don’t bother me again.
As well as matters of gender, the Irish harp also raises issues of

social class. The instrument tends to be associated with the higher
socio-economic groups, simply because of its expense. This may
contribute to an alienation from other traditional players, as
historically Irish traditional music has been associated with rural
areas, for instance small farming communities.186 Janet Harbison has
made efforts to improve the accessibility of the Irish harp by raising
money, for instance at Cláirseóirí na hÉireann sessions, to purchase
harps for the use of those who cannot afford to buy their own. This
kind of excellent initiative is, unfortunately, rare, and Irish harp
playing does still remain a largely middle-class phenomenon.
Some light was shed on the issue of acceptance of the Irish harper by
the general body of traditional musicians, in an interview with
Monaghan harp player Fionnuala Rooney, representative of the latest
generation of harp players in this genre. Born in 1980, she was
taught initially by her older brother Michael Rooney, now an
established and successful traditional musician in his own right. Both
186
However, as Aibhlín McCrann observed in the interview with the writer, this is
less the case today, since in urban areas especially, it has become fashionable for
the middle classes to seek to discover their ‘roots’ and search for a cultural
identity.
121
are former students of Janet Harbison. Fionnuala Rooney is now a
promising young performer and teacher, having received a masters
degree in traditional music performance at the University of
Limerick, and achieved first place in the recent (2003) All-Ireland
Fleadh Irish harp competition. She explained how she began
learning the Irish harp at the age of seven:
It was just another instrument, d’you know? At that

stage I was learning the whistle, fiddle, and piano,
and it was just like, ‘Here’s your next instrument’. It
just seemed like a natural step, because Michael was
doing it as well. So it was grand. I just got on with it.
She remarked that during the time she was being taught by her
brother, he was also playing several other instruments himself. Her
younger brother Aonghus subsequently came to the instrument in the
same way, viewing it as merely another vehicle for playing
traditional music. She explained how her harp playing and general
musicianship are enhanced by playing and listening to a variety of
instruments:
[While at Limerick], two or three of us would play

together all the time, a piper and a concertina player.
Literally, every day we played tunes. We played in
sessions, came into college and taught each other
tunes, so I’m hearing so much of the piping
ornamentation, and the concertina ornamentation…
Fiddle music is definitely the biggest influence in
my playing, of all the instruments. I try and phrase
tunes as a fiddle player would phrase them, because
I feel the harp can get so ‘notey’…and I think it’s
dynamics as well. Just subtle dynamics, to give a
phrase a feeling, you know?
Similarly, Aibhlín McCrann is quite categoric in her opinion of the

benefits of playing other instruments:
Because it’s so difficult to learn the techniques on

the harp I don’t think it’s possible for you to be
successful as a harper without playing another
traditional instrument. You have an opportunity
maybe with more facility, to play tunes and naturally
ornament things because they’re in the whistle tunes
122
or they’re in the fiddle tunes, and you really have to
work quite hard to get the same effect upon the harp.
Technically it’s quite difficult to play a roll or cut.
On a whistle it’s quite easy.187
Indeed, the writer would suggest that this all-inclusive approach by

harp-players is crucial in helping to dispel the perception of the Irish
harp as an elite instrument, or one that sits ‘between two stools’. As
Fionnuala Rooney observes: ‘I always try and emphasise this: our
family are not harp-players. We play Irish music’.
As the session is so central to the life of traditional musicians,

another means by which an instrument can establish its ‘traditional’
viability is its potential for being a part of this scenario. There was
mixed opinion on this issue by the harp players interviewed. Patricia
Daly perceives the harp as a solo instrument or suited to small
ensembles, in intimate venues:
Harp music I think is geared towards a listening

market. The audience comes to listen. If you’re in a
session [the sound] is sort of lost a wee bit. It
trickles through.
Cormac De Barra feels more comfortable playing in a session at

home with his family rather than in a pub, due to the size of the
instrument and space needed for it, and also the fact that transporting
it in a car means that he cannot drink alcohol. Furthermore, he shares
Daly’s opinion that the harp cannot be heard above the noise of a
busy pub. He did, however, make the observation that harp players
who play a variety of instruments, such as Fionnuala Rooney and her
brothers, are likely to participate in sessions more often, and to play
the harp at some or all of them. Again, this lends support to the
argument of multi-instrumentalism dissipating the harp’s elitist
image.
In a pub session in Warrenpoint during the Ulster Fleadh, Aonghus

Rooney was one of three harp players. It was interesting to observe
187
Bell, Alison: ‘Interview: Aibhlín McCrann’, Sounding Strings, No.14 (West
Lothian, Spring 1998), 40.
123
their roles within the group, which was quite large (three harps, two
fiddles, flute, banjo, pipes, concertina, guitar and bodhran). Two of
the harp players generally played a chordal accompaniment to the
tunes. However, Aonghus Rooney, the more proficient of the three,
almost invariably played the tune, not the accompaniment. Contrary
to the writer’s expectations, his playing was quite audible,
particularly in the middle range of the instrument, and caused the
writer to question the argument that the harp is an unsuitable session
instrument due to the quality of its sound.
Fionnuala Rooney, who was playing the fiddle at this session, felt
considerable frustration due to the balance of instruments being less
than ideal, with so many in the group playing accompaniments:
I can’t stand a couple of harps at the one time [in a

session], or three harps, all doing different things. It
becomes more about the fact that there’s a harp there
than the tune, that’s meant to be heard. There were a
couple of stages where maybe myself and one of the
other melody players were playing the tune, and
there might have been three people backing, so that
doesn’t make any sense…So that’s my attitude: it’s
all about the tune. It has to be about the tune.
As a result of the dissatisfaction felt, four of the musicians had

subsequently moved to a different pub later in the evening:
Fionnuala (fiddle), Aonghus (harp), the banjo player and the piper.
Fionnuala considers a smaller group in a session to be more
desirable, not only because it is more ideal for the harp player, but
also because it provides an opportunity for greater musical
satisfaction for all concerned:
My ideal session is no more than five musicians. I

love to see the harp, a fiddle, concertina, pipes, and
maybe a button accordian. Maybe a flute. And really
slow. Just listening; listening to every note, playing
every note. Not rushing on: ‘What’s the next tune?
What are we going to play next?’; playing each tune
four or five times, and slow.
124
These conditions of Fionnuala Rooney’s ideal session were certainly
not encountered by the writer when visiting six different pubs at the
Thomastown Traditional Music Festival in Co. Kilkenny, 1st August,
2003. Between seven and twelve musicians were playing in each
group, and remarkably, the writer heard no type of tune except reels,
which were played very fast. The fact that no harps were seen may
lead one simply to assume that no harp players were present at any
of the sessions. However, it is of relevance that Aonghus Rooney
was in fact a member of one of the groups, but playing the tin
whistle. It may be supposed that he chose not to play the harp due to
the fact that he considered it inappropriate for this kind of session.
In conclusion, there has been a certain amount of progress, largely

because of the efforts of individual harp players, in removing the
instrument’s elitist image, and carving a niche in the mainstream
traditional musician’s world. It should also be observed that this role
for the Irish harp, compared to most other traditional instruments, is
in its infancy. More time is required for prejudices to be removed,
and for the harp to be embraced completely. More effort is needed
especially by other traditional musicians, as it were, to ‘meet
halfway’, and to recognise the instrument’s many-stranded identity:
music of the historical harp tradition, singing with the harp, slow
airs, as well as dance music. There is no reason why any of these
types of music should not be part of a session. The writer is
convinced that by exploring many facets of Irish traditional music,
not merely concentrating on the genre of dance music (the reel in
particular), and by keeping the group of musicians small enough to
encourage more thoughtful and sensitive playing, the traditional
musician’s experience will be greatly enhanced. The Irish harp, if it
is so allowed, will have an important role in this enrichment.
125
CONCLUSION
The Irish harp was certainly transformed from the beginning of the
nineteenth century, in terms of its appearance, sound, manner of
playing and social and musical roles. Based on pedal harp design,
and influenced by the image and manner of playing of that
instrument, its role as a drawing room instrument for genteel ladies
became firmly established during this century. Due to the Irish harp’s
promotion by convent schools, it retained this image throughout the
first half of the twentieth, to become somewhat diluted in the 1950s
when it became associated with the tourist cabaret.
It has been shown that other significant changes occurred in the

1970s, linked to a traditional music revival, in which musicians were
inspired to explore the possibilities of instruments hitherto regarded
as ‘untraditional’. Since this time the image of the Irish harp as a
traditional instrument, particularly for the playing of dance tunes, has
become increasingly relevant.
However, while the Irish harp has proved its viability as a traditional
instrument, it has many years of stereotyping to overcome. It is still
in its infancy, and the acceptance will occur only with the
cooperation of other musicians, and also with greater tolerance of
differences between harp players and organisations, working
together towards the common goal of achieving respect and
recognition for the instrument’s many-stranded identity.
126
APPENDIX I:
The wire strung harp
Categories
Rimmer divides the historical wire-strung harp into three
categories.188
The first is the medieval ‘small, low-headed Irish harp’.189 An

example is the fourteenth-century instrument known as the Trinity
College harp. It had 30 brass strings and stands about 28 inches
high (Figure 35190).
Rimmer refers to the second category as the ‘large, low-headed’

harp, which dates from the early seventeenth century, with strings
numbering from 40 to 43.191 The Otway harp is an example (figure
36192).
Finally, itinerant harpers in the eighteenth century such as

O’Carolan would have used a ‘large, high-headed’ instrument. By
now the shape had changed considerably, with the neck
dramatically sweeping upwards to meet the top of the pillar. Unlike
medieval harps, eighteenth-century wire-strung harps were not
elaborately decorated. O’Neill’s harp is representative of this type
of instrument (figure 37193).
188
Rimmer, Joan: The Irish Harp, (Cork, 1977).
189
Ibid, 35.
190
Ibid, 32.
191
Ibid, 46, 49, 53-4.
192
Ibid, 50.
193
Ibid, 59.
127
Figure 35: Trinity College Harp, fourteenth century (small, low-
headed)
128
Figure 36: Otway Harp, seventeenth century (large, low-headed)
129
Figure 37: O’Neill Harp (large, high-headed)
130
The wire strung harp: decline and preservation
From the seventeenth century the wire strung harp began a slow
process of decline. There were several reasons for this. The most
important was political, with the disintegration of Gaelic society
and the onset of anglicisation.194 Thus the harper gradually lost his
privileged position, his profession being transformed to that of a
travelling musician, patronised by the aristocracy. In addition, the
degeneration of the tradition was connected to musical tastes of the
time, with the rise of chromaticism and gradual abandonment of the
modes.195 Naturally, the diatonically tuned wire strung harp was not
designed for music of this style. Experiments to chromaticise the
instrument were unsuccessful,196 as any attempt to perform the new,
fashionable music resulted in clashing tonalities, due to the long
resonance of the wire strings and consequent damping difficulties.
The strident sound of the wire strung harp (especially played with
the fingernails), in common with other historical instruments, was
also falling from favour.197
Towards the end of the eighteenth century an effort was made to

revive the dying tradition. In 1792, the Belfast Society for
Promoting Knowledge, led by Dr. James MacDonnell, organised a
Harp festival in the city. The Society, being ‘solicitous to preserve
from oblivion the few fragments [of music] which have been
permitted to remain as monuments of the refined taste and genius of
their ancestors’,198 employed the young organist Edward Bunting to
transcribe the music being performed by the harpers. Although only
eleven harpers attended, mostly blind and with an average age of
58,199 only one using fingernails, the event proved to be one of the
most significant in the history of Irish music. Bunting’s work at the
1792 Harp Festival, and subsequent visits to participants and rural
194
Sanger, Keith and Kinnaird, Alison: Tree of Strings, (Midlothian, 1992), 153.
195
Billinge, Michael and Shaljean, Bonnie: ‘The Dalway or Fitzgerald Harp
(1621)’, Early Music, Vol XV No. 2, (London, May1987), 187.
196
Ibid.
197
Ibid, 184.
198
From a handbill circulated by the Society in Belfast, 1791, quoted in Killen,
John: A History of the Linen Hall Library, (Belfast, 1990), 173.
199
Yeats, Gráinne: The Harp of Ireland, (Belfast, 1992), 14.
131
singers,200 resulted in three published collections of pieces,201 with
arrangements for the piano. The many pieces and songs noted by
Bunting which are so familiar to traditional Irish musicians today
(not only to harpists), such as ‘An Cúilín’, ‘Brian Ború’s March’,
‘Tabhair dom do lámh’, ‘Eibhlín a Rún’, ‘Roisín Dubh’, ‘Fanny
Power’, and ‘Carolan’s Concerto’,202 would probably have
disappeared into oblivion, had it not been for his efforts.
However, Bunting only transcribed the actual melody lines played

by the harpers, not the basses. He then arranged the pieces for the
piano, with increasing elaboration and chromatic harmony in each
subsequent collection. Bunting has been severely criticised for his
treatment of the harpers’ music in several scholarly works.203 In his
defence it could be argued that since the harp was in steep decline,
the only way to ensure the commercial viability of the publications
was to arrange the music for the piano, an instrument attaining great
popularity in the drawing rooms of the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries. The ears of the gentry and rising urban classes
had absorbed the influences of European art music, and thus
Bunting used the chromatic harmonic idiom of the time in his
arrangements. His publications are given considerable weight here
due to the wealth of material his work has made available to many
performers of the Irish harp today, for example Máire Ní
Chathasaigh, Derek Bell and Janet Harbison.204 Derek Bell has paid
Bunting the following generous tribute:
I am most grateful to Bunting for collecting,

preserving and saving these wonderful tunes from
total extinction; and for at least occasionally trying
to write down what the harpers actually played,
however fragmentary it all was; and since a little
200
Milligan Fox, Charlotte: Annals of the Irish Harpers, (London, 1911), 212.
201
Bunting, Edward: Ancient Irish Music, (London, 1796), Ancient Music of
Ireland, (London, 1809), The Ancient Music of Ireland, (Dublin, 1840). They were
reissued in one volume by Walton’s, Dublin, in 1969.
202
Yeats, Gráinne: The Harp of Ireland, (Belfast, 1992), 19, and Maher, Tom: The
Harp’s a Wonder, (Mullingar, 1991), 5.
203
For example, Hayward, Richard: The Story of the Irish Harp, (Dublin, 1954).
204
Ní Chathasaigh, Máire and Chris Newman: The Carolan Albums (Old Bridge
Music: OBMCD06), The Chieftains: The Celtic Harp- A Tribute to Edward
Bunting, with the Belfast Harp Orchestra (RCA Victor 09026 614902).
132
intelligence, knowledge and discretion can enable
any sensible musician to get rid of Bunting’s musical
errors of judgement, I readily forgive him most of
these.205
The early nineteenth-century harp societies

In the early nineteenth century, three Harp Societies were founded,
all of which eventually failed due to difficulty obtaining
subscriptions. Their aim was to ‘revive the harp and the ancient
music of Ireland’,206 with the additional charitable object of
preparing mostly poor and blind children for careers as harpers. The
writer believes that wire-strung harps were used in these societies,
and a justification for this belief is provided below.
The Societies were based in Belfast (1808-13 and 1819-39), Dublin

(1809-1812) and Drogheda (1842-48). Edward Bunting was a
founding member of and subscriber to the Belfast Societies. Two
participants from the Belfast Harp Festival, Arthur O’Neill and
Patrick Quin, were the tutors for the first phase of the Belfast
Society, and the Dublin Society respectively. Their students
undertook this role in the later Belfast and Drogheda societies.207
Scholarship is confused and ambiguous as to whether or not the

harps used in these Societies were wire or gut strung. In the little
documentation which exists, for example in the minute books of the
Belfast Harp Society, there is scant detail on the subject.208 Joan
Rimmer suggested that John Egan supplied both kinds.209 Robert
Armstrong Bruce alleged that it was only the wire strung
instrument,210 and Nancy Hurrell of the Historical Harp Society
205
Quoted in Magee, John: The Heritage of the Harp, (Belfast, 1992), 24.
206
From a Belfast Harp Society handbill, 1819, illustrated in Killen, John: A
History of the Linen Hall Library, (Belfast, 1990), 187.
207
Flood, W. H. Grattan: The Story of the Harp, (London, 1905), 147-152.
208
Rimmer: Joan, The Irish Harp, (London, 1980), 67.
209
For example, Flood found that ‘harps were supplied by White, McClenaghan,
and McCabe, Of Belfast, at a cost of ten guineas each’. (Flood, W. H. Grattan: The
Story of the Harp, (London, 1905), 148).
210
Armstrong, Robert Bruce: The Irish and Highland Harps, (Edinburgh, 1904),
100-107.
133
asserts that it was Egan’s gut strung instrument that was used by the
second Belfast Harp Society.211
However, the writer believes that it is unlikely that Egan’s gut-

strung ‘Portable Harp’ was used at all in any of the Harp Societies.
As it was first manufactured in 1819,212 it was naturally not
available to the first phase of the Belfast Society and the Dublin
Society in any case. Even if gut strung harps had been available
before this time, (perhaps trial models made by Egan), they would
not have been used as the tutors, O’Neill and Quin, played and
taught the wire strung instrument. Admittedly they were not using
fingernails, but the technique of playing a gut-strung harp would
still have radically deviated from that with which they were
familiar. The older, wire-strung models were designed to rest on the
left shoulder, not the right, and the shape of the hands was also very
different. The fingers were curved and close together to facilitate
damping of individual strings, and also to avoid the strings jarring
with one another. Egan’s gut strung ‘Portable’ harp required the
‘thumbs up, fingers down’ hand position of the pedal harp, as gut
strings have greater tension and less resonance than wire, and
therefore require greater ‘leverage’.
In addition, as has already been stated, O’Neill and Quin taught

their successors who took over their role in the later Societies, and
it would logically be expected that techniques appropriate to the
wire-strung, not the gut-strung instrument would have been
transmitted to them, and indeed to any harper originating from the
Societies.
Finally, it must be mentioned that although Egan’s wire-strung

harps superficially resembled historical models in their basic shape,
they were much more lightly constructed, with soundboxes made in
211
Hurrell, Nancy: ‘A Harp from 19th Century Ireland: The Royal Portable Harp by
John Egan’, Folk Harp Journal, No.119, (Walton Creek, Spring 2003), 52.
212
Macmaster, Mary: ‘Harp V, 10(i): “The Celtic Revival”’, The New Grove
Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London, 2001), 924.
134
two pieces like the pedal harp. They are described by Rimmer as
‘nightmare parodies of the old Irish harp’.213
213
Rimmer, Joan: The Irish Harp, (Cork, 1977), 67.
135
APPENDIX II
Small harp makers at the turn of the twentieth century
There do not appear to be any records of gut-strung Irish harps being

manufactured or played for about fifty years after Egan’s ‘Portable’.
The famine may have partly contributed to this, and may also have
been due to the fact that Lady Morgan, who was largely responsible
for promoting the instrument in Ireland, moved to London later in
her life, where she died in 1859.214 Sanger and Kinnaird state that
small gut-strung harps were made by Morley of London for the Irish
market since 1890.215 Flood, writing in 1905, mentions two harp
factories in Belfast at this time, and he describes the instruments as
‘really very fine, especially those made by Mr. James McFall’. The
advertisement shown in figure 38 appeared in the Journal of the
Irish Folk Song Society, vol. 1, No. 1. April 1904.216
As stated in the advertisement, McFall made the ‘Tara Harp’ in 1902

for Cardinal Logue (see figure 39217). This harp is somewhat of a
hybrid. The shape of the neck resembles Egan’s portable harp, but
the upward-sweeping shape of the head is similar to the large high-
headed wire strung harp of the eighteenth century. The pillar’s ornate
carving is copied from the medieval low-headed harp, while the
rounded back is shaped like that on a pedal harp. Complete with
elaborate decoration on the soundboard, Rimmer describes the
instrument as ‘in all, a charming piece of antiquarian art nouveau’.218
Flood gives a description of a typical ‘modern Irish harp’ at the time

of his writing in 1905:
214
Source of biographical information on Lady Morgan:
www.db.mcmail.com/owensons.htm
215
Sanger, Keith and Kinnaird, Alison: Tree of Strings, (Midlothian, 1992), 209.
216
Copy of the advertisement supplied to the writer by Simon Chadwick, editor of
www.clarsach.net, the website for the wire branch of the Clarsach Society.
217
Photograph from Flood, W. H. Grattan: The Story of the Harp, (London, 1905).
218
Rimmer, Joan: The Irish Harp (Dublin, 1977), 70.
136
Figure 38: Advertisement by MacFall, 1904
137
Figure 39: MacFall ‘Tara Harp’, dated 1902
138
The compass of the Irish harp is about four octaves,
from C to G in alt, and the strings are of catgut- the
C’s being coloured red, and the F’s blue. It is tuned
by fifths and octaves, and the performers can prove
the tuning by other consonant intervals. Though
mostly tuned in the key of C, some harpists prefer
that of E flat [as on Egan’s ‘Portable’ harp]. Each
string can be raised a semitone by turning a peg, a
quarter turn being sufficient for the purpose, and
thus, in the key of G major, it is only necessary to
raise the pegs of the F string.219
It can therefore be assumed that the practice of colouring the C and F

strings on small harps dates from at least this time, as can the use of
‘pegs’ placed near the top of each string on the left hand side of the
neck, which alter the pitch of the note by a semitone when turned.
The latter design was invented in Austria in the late seventeenth
century, where U-shaped hooks, which could be turned either way,
were placed between strings on the neck, usually only about three
per octave and usually only in the middle octaves. Unlike the hook-
harp, however, the Irish harp had a hook for every string, and only
turned in one direction.
Mention should also be made of gut-strung small harps being made

in Scotland around this time, given the mutual influence between the
two countries in terms of harp-playing throughout the twentieth
century. In 1892 the National Mod, similar to the Feis Ceoil, was
established in Scotland. Lord Archibald Campbell wished to
encourage the playing of the small harp (known in Scotland as the
Clarsach) at the Mod, and commissioned six to be made by
Buchanan, a piano dealer in Glasgow. These instruments were
similar to the low-headed medieval harps in shape, but had gut
strings, rounded backs based on pedal harp design, and semitone
blades at the top of each string.220
Melville Clark, a New York harp maker, marketed his ‘Irish Harp’
from 1912, and the design was very influential on subsequent makers
219
Flood, W. H. Grattan: The Story of the Harp (London, 1905), 153-4.
220
Sanger, Keith and Kinnaird, Alison: Tree of Strings (Midlothian, 1992), 208-9.
139
throughout the twentieth century (see figure 40221). Very similar in
shape to Egan’s ‘Portable’, Clark’s Irish harp was well-made, stood
about 52 inches high (including the stand), had 31 strings from first
octave G to sixth octave E in the bass, mostly gut except the lower
octave which were of wound wire. It was usually tuned in E flat, and
had semitone turning-blades for each string, shaped rather like small
butter-knives. In many of these features Clark could be said to have
set the standard for about the next fifty years.222
221
Photograph from Rensch, Roslyn: Harps and Harpists (London, 1989), 146.
222
Ibid, 145.
140
Figure 40: Clark’s ‘Irish Harp’, early twentieth century
141
APENDIX III
The Irish harp’s contribution to the 2003 Feis Ceoil
According to the festival programme,223 18 harpists took part across

the three junior age groups, and the requirement was to play two test
pieces. These were predominantly arrangements of historical harp
tunes and Carolan compositions, by Gráinne Yeats and Máire Ní
Chathasaigh. For example, the latter’s arrangement of Carolan’s
‘Lord Inchiquin’ was a test piece for the 12 to 15 age group (see
figure 41224). The only exception to this was T.C. Kelly’s ‘Interlude’
(see figure 15), a test piece for the 15 to 18 age group, evidence that
Sheila Larchet-Cuthbert’s The Irish Harp Book is still a popular
resource for this genre.
The senior Irish harp competition, the Corn Úi Chearbhalláin,225

presented by Gráinne Yeats, required the eight participants to
perform ‘a recital of not more than fifteen minutes duration. Works
to include one in classical style, one contemporary, and one Irish’.226
The winner, Clare McCague from Co. Monaghan, performed
‘Variations sur un Theme de Mozart’ (anon.), an arrangement of the
Mexican composer Lara’s (1897-1970) ‘Granada’, and an
arrangement of the traditional Irish air ‘Mná na hÉireann’.227 The
Irish contribution from six out of seven of the remaining competitors
consisted of arrangements of Carolan pieces. A notable exception
was Helen Lyons from Dublin, who achieved second place, and
performed her own arrangement of two traditional reels. This was
the only occasion on which any of the participants in the Feis Ceoil
Irish harp competitions played traditional dance music.
There were two competitions for voice and Irish harp in the 2003
Feis Ceoil: the Mairín Ní Shé228 Prize, in which the two competitors
223
107th Feis Ceoil Programme (Dublin, 2003), 130, 165-6, 168.
224
From Ní Chathasaigh, Máire: The Irish Harper, Volume Two (Ilkley, 2001), 12.
225
‘The O’Carolan Prize’.
226
107th Feis Ceoil Programme (Dublin, 2003), 168.
227
‘Women of Ireland’.
228
Already noted as the Irish harp tutor at Sion Hill convent school who taught
Mary O’Hara and Janet Harbison.
142
Figure 41: Arr. Ní Chathasaigh: Carolan’s ‘Lord Inchiquin’.
143
were required to sing ‘four songs in Irish to own harp
accompaniment: two ‘great’ songs and two light songs’, and the
Nancy Calthorpe Memorial Prize. Calthorpe (1914-1998) was a tutor
for Irish harp at both Loreto Abbey and Sion Hill convents, and was
noted for her published arrangements for harp and voice in the 1960s
and 1970s. The songs, which are in both the English and Irish
languages, were obtained from various sources such the nineteenth-
century collections of Moore, Petrie, Joyce and Bunting, and three of
her arrangements were awarded an Oireachtas Prize in 1966.229 The
three competitors in the Calthorpe Memorial Prize, 2003, were
required to perform the following:
(a) A song in English or Irish arranged by Nancy Calthorpe.
(b) A harp solo arranged by Nancy Calthorpe.
(c) A song in Irish or English arranged by the competitor.
(d) A setting of a Carolan tune arranged by the

competitor.230
One of the competitors, Christine O’Mahoney, performed ‘Túirne

Mháire’,231 (figure 42232) a traditional spinning song, one of
Calthorpe’s arrangements which had received the Oireachtas award.
The harp accompaniment is light in texture, simple and unobtrusive,
becoming more rhythmic and lively in the chorus section.
The fact that there were only five competitors in total for voice and
harp is an indication of this genre’s current lack of popularity
compared to the solo harp competitions, which had a total of 26
entrants.
229
Larchet-Cuthbert, Sheila: ‘The Irish Harp Book’ (Cork and Dublin), 238.
230
107th Feis Ceoil Programme (Dublin, 2003), 130.
231
‘Mary’s Spinning Wheel’.
232
From Calthorpe, Nancy: ‘The Calthorpe Collection: Songs and Airs Arranged
for the Irish Harp’ (Dublin, 1974), 64-5.
144
Figure 42: Arr. Calthorpe: ‘Túirne Mháire’ (page 1)
145
Figure 42: Arr. Calthorpe: ‘Túirne Mháire’ (page 2)
146
APPENDIX IV
Two examination systems
Royal Irish Academy of Music

Each grade, from one to eight, is designed to be of equivalent
difficulty to the corresponding grades in examinations from such
centres as the Associated Board or Trinity College. Two pieces are
required: from list ‘A’, a piece from the historical harp tradition, and
from list ‘B’, a piece from the western art music tradition. The
majority of the pieces are taken from Cáirde Na Cruite’s
publications: ‘The Irish Harp Book’ and the four books in the
‘Sounding Harps’ series, published between 1990 and 1998. As an
alternative to the art music piece in list ‘B’ the candidate may
perform ‘an Irish traditional tune of suitable standard’. Aine Ní
Dhuill remarked that this is to make the syllabus more accessible to
those with a traditional music background. However, it is noteworthy
that a study is also required (from list ‘C’) in each grade, many of
which are taken from the classical pedal harp repertoire of, for
example Naderman or Grossi. Furthermore, the sight-reading
requirement obviously requires musical literacy.
The Harp Foundation (Ireland) Ltd: Certificate of Achievement

This syllabus was devised by Janet Harbison in 1993, and caters for
many strands of the Irish harp tradition. There are four levels:
Novice, Elementary, Intermediate and Competent (these levels are
approximately equivalent in difficulty to Preliminary Grade to Grade
Seven in other examination boards). As well as history and general
knowledge requirements, performance repertoire at these levels
include dance tunes, Carolan pieces, set dances and slow airs.
After ‘Competent’ level, the candidate is required to choose a

specialist area from the following list (equivalent to Grade Eight):
Historical Repertoire, Lamentations and Slow Airs, Classical Period
Repertoire, The Romantic Repertoire, Background Music Repertoire,
147
Dance Music Repertoire, Song and Harp Accompaniment, Religious
Music, Healing (Passive Therapeutic) Harp Music, Composition,
Arrangement, Accompaniment. On the successful completion of six
specialist areas, the harp player achieves ‘Master Harper’ status,
equivalent to a Performer’s Diploma.
148
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Ní Bheaglaoich, Seosaimhín: Taobh na Gréine/ Under the Sun

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(Temple Records, 1997: COMD 2019).
155
O’Farrell, Anne-Marie: My Lagan Love (CMR Records, 2001: CMD
1075).
O’Farrell, Anne-Marie: The Jig’s Up (Anne-Marie O’Farrell, 1997:

CD1903).
O’Hara, Mary: Irish Magic (Cedar, 2001: GF369).
‘Planxty’: The Well Below the Valley (Shanachie, 1988: 79010).
Stivell, Alan: Renaissance of the Celtic Harp (Philips, 1990:

818007-2).
156
Videography
Celtic Harpestry: Live from Lismore Castle, Ireland (Polygram

Video, 1998: 440 079 319-3).
157
Internet Websites Consulted
Cáirde Na Cruite: Annual Festival for Irish Harp,

http://www.harp.net/cnac/cnacfest.htm
Chadwick, Simon: Some highlights in small harp history since 1800,

www.simon-s.net/harp/LeverHarp8.html
Contemporary Music Centre of Ireland: Anne-Marie O’Farrell,

http://www.cmc.ie/composers/composer.cfm?composerID=93
Daly, Patricia: Armagh Harper’s Association,

http://www.armaghharpers.com/
Harbison, Janet: Biographical,

www.belfastharps.com/janetharbison/biographical.htm
Harbison, Janet: Irish Harp Centre, http://www.irishharpcentre.com/
Owenson, George: Sydney Owenson (Lady Morgan),

www.db.mcmail.com/owensons.htm
Siemens Ltd: The 107th Feis Ceoil, http://www.siemens.ie/feis/
Taylor, William: Traditional and Historical Scottish Harps,

www.clarsach.net/Bill_Taylor/traditional.htm
Vatican Council: Documents of the II Vatican Council,

http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/inde
x.htm
158

The Irish Harp

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The Irish Harp

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THE GUT STRUNG IRISH HARP:

The development of the harp and its players, in Ireland, from

c.1819 to the present day

Submitted in partial fulfilment

University of Wales, Bangor

30th September, 2003

Around the 1950s, as Ireland was undergoing social and economic

Harp players, however, did not receive recognition by the general

There are many more teachers and summer schools available

Chapter One: John Egan’s ‘Portable’ Harp 16

Chapter Two: Nationalism and Thomas Moore 20

Chapter Three: Cultural renewal 30

Chapter Four: The convent schools 38

Chapter Five: The celebrity harpists and the tourist industry 44

Chapter Six: The folk and traditional music revivals 48

Chapter Seven: Cáirde Na Cruite: the early years 53

Chapter Eight: The Irish Harp as a High Art Concert Instrument 62

Chapter Nine: The emergence of the ‘traditional’ Irish harp 74

Chapter Ten: Style and technique: Máire Ní Chathasaigh 79

Chapter Twelve: The response from the established musical

Chapter Thirteen: A meeting of minds 104

Chapter Fourteen: Promotion by Comhaltas 111

Chapter Fifteen: How valid is the Irish harp as a traditional

Appendix I: The wire strung harp 127

Appendix III: The Irish harp’s contribution to

Appendix IV: Two examination systems 147

Internet websites consulted 158

1. Audio CD containing musical examples.

2. DVD containing two extracts from Celtic Harpestry: Live

(denoted in the text by the symbol ♫)

(Unless otherwise stated, these examples are extracts from complete

1. O’Hara, Mary: ‘Silent, O Moyle’

Figure 1: The ‘Portable’ harp by John Egan, dated 1819.

Acknowledgements are made to the following:

The Irish Traditional Music Archive

The National Library of Ireland

The Royal Irish Academy of Music, for their examination syllabus.

Simon Chadwick, for the copy of James MacFall’s advertisement.

Cormac Bowell, for Irish translations.

This dissertation is being submitted in partial fulfilment of the

This dissertation is the result of my own independent

I hereby give consent for my dissertation, if accepted, to be available

In 1999 Máire Ní Chathasaigh wrote of the Irish harp:

No other instrument symbolises both the continuities

This study concerns the development of the modern, gut or nylon

The study will then focus on the role of convent schools in

-Participation in workshop given by Máire Ní Chathasaigh at

-Observation and filming of workshop given by Janet Harbison at

-Attendance at Granard Harp Festival (Co. Longford):

-Attendance as a ‘listener’ at the Cáirde Na Cruite Harp Festival,

-Visit to the workshop of Colm O’Meachair. Unrecorded interview

-Recorded interview with Patricia Daly (28th July, 2003).

-Recorded interview with Janet Harbison (31st July, 2003).

-Attendance at Traditional Music Festival, Thomastown, Co.

-Recorded interview with Séamus Mac Mathuna (8th August, 2003).

Unless otherwise stated, all quotations in the dissertation originate

John Egan’s ‘Portable’ Harp

John Egan was a successful Dublin instrument maker who

Your harp is arrived, and, for the honour of Ireland, I

Though a passing fashion, great importance is however attributed to

Nationalism and Thomas Moore

The political history of the Irish harp has…been

In 1791 a nationalist political movement based in Belfast was

Furthermore, two distinct musical traditions existed in Ireland in the