Irish harp archive#

With a handcrafted body, a collection of cleverly tuned. Harp made by Pedro Ferreira ( Atelier Rumor) in 2019, based on the NMI Carolan harp owned by the National Museum of Ireland. An instrument with a rich history in Ireland, loved by many and held in high esteem in society. I am living in Armagh, which is in the midst of where some of the most important tradition-bearers were from.

Irish harp archive#

I play traditional Irish harp repertory, sourced from my own musicological research into Edward Bunting’s live transcription manuscripts, and from listening to Irish traditional musicians and singers in the living tradition and in archive recordings.

I play these copies using the traditional Irish harp playing techniques, following the work of Sylvia Crawford. I string these copies using iron and brass wire strings, following the traditional stringing and tuning systems. Their playing techniques and their repertory were written down in the 1790s and early 1800s by the music collector, Edward Bunting.įor my own music, I use copies of their harps, made by specialist historical harpmakers and based on museum research into the originals. Some of the harps played by these last generations of old Irish harpers are still preserved in museums. Their harps were the big floor-standing wire-strung Irish harps, with 30 or more brass or iron wire strings. Their music was closely connected to traditional Irish song, fiddle and pipe music. They were taught orally, without using written music notation, in a chain of teachers’ teachers back through generations of traditional harpers. These tradition-bearers played the harp in the inherited Irish harp tradition. My aim is to study and understand the last of the old tradition bearers from the 1790s through to the early 1900s, to try and re-connect to their tradition as it was before the direct lineage of master to student came to an end a bit over 100 years ago.

I am working on this traditional, pre-revival, style of playing. Instead of engaging with the tradition-bearers, middle-class enthusiasts in the Gaelic revival movement from the 1890s onward turned to Anglo-Continental classical harp teachers to invent a new tradition of harping in Ireland which thrives today.īut despite the suppression and ending of the inherited tradition, we have a huge amount of information about the harpers, the music, the harps, and how they were played. The last of the tradition-bearers died in poverty, ignored and un-noticed. Deluxe Irish Harp and Sword Kilt Pin-A Stillwater Kilts Exclusive product Show off your Irish pride (and good taste) with our Deluxe Irish Harp and S. The old Irish harp traditions came to an end in the early years of the 20th century. The traditional Irish harp playing techniques, first published in 1840, use the left hand in the treble and the right hand in the bass. For centuries, the distinctive thing about an Irish harp has been its metal wire strings.