Masters of the

Irish Harp

Contents 1

The Geese in the Bog (Trad) Gráinne Hambly harp

3.37

2

Anna Mhic Dhiarmada Rua (Carolan) Aibhlín McCrann harp

2.28

3 Lon Dubh / Maidrín Ruadh (Trad/ Goodman) Laoise Kelly harp

4.09

4 An Leannán (Ní Uallacháin) Helen Davies harp with Palle Mikkelborg trumpet & Mikkel Nordsoe guitar

5.33

5 Port an Deoraí / An Phis Fliuch (Trad) Paul Dooley harp

3.07

6 Prelude from Lute Suite BWV 1006a (Bach) Anne-Marie O’Farrell harp

5.11

7 Da Mihi Manum (Ó Catháin) Siobhán Armstrong harp

5.25

8 The Green Mountain / The Hearty Bucks of Oranmore (Trad) 2.54 Michelle Mulcahy harp

9 Reel for a Water Diviner (Ní Chathasaigh) Máire Ní Chathasaigh harp with Chris Newman acoustic & electric guitars, mandolins, electric bass, Roy Whyke drums, percussion

3.53

10 The Queen of the West / Eleanor Plunkett (Trad / Carolan) Kathleen Loughnane harp

3.42

11 Arrane Ghelbee (Trad) Áine Ní Dhubhghaill harp

2.59

12 The Monaghan Jig (Trad) Cormac de Barra harp with Fionán de Barra guitar, Mário N’Goma percussion

3.19

13 Rakish Paddy / The Bucks of Oranmore / The Mortgage Burn (Trad / MacLean) Tríona Marshall harp

4.16

14 Suantraí (Harbison) Janet Harbison harp

3.13

15 Bridget Cruise / The Deer’s March (Carolan / Trad) Dearbhail Finnegan harp

3.51

16 Farewell to Music (Carolan) Gráinne Yeats harp

4.59

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All tracks arranged by the performers.

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The Harp In Ireland, the symbol of the harp is everywhere: on our coins, passports, tax demands and even the ubiquitous pint glass. The Irish harp, our national emblem, is probably one of our most enduring and recognisable images. It has featured on high crosses from as early as the eighth century and, since the foundation of the State in 1922, it has been used as the official government symbol. Commercially the harp is also incorporated into the logo of many businesses. Its elegant form represents tradition, dignity and lineage. If you wander into the Long Room Library in Trinity College Dublin, you can see what is known as the Brian Boru Harp, a replica of an instrument dating back to the 14th century. A small, low-headed harp with a heavy sound box made of willow, it has twenty nine brass-wire strings. This is the kind of harp that would have been used in Gaelic society when wealthy noblemen and chieftains had as part of their household a resident File (poet) and Cruitire (harper). Playing the strings with long, carefully shaped finger nails, the harper provided the backdrop for the Reacaire (reciter) to chant the poet’s words celebrating great events like victories in battle, heroic deeds, or laments for the dead. The notion of the High King Brian Boru sitting down after a heavy day on the battlefield to be soothed by the harp conjures up a rather bizarre image, but this was not at all uncommon. The instrument was sometimes thought to be imbued with magical powers, and woven into Irish myth and folklore are the three earliest forms of stringed music: goltraí (laments), geantraí (lively tunes) and suantraí 3

(lullabies). These were the templates on which most harp music was based and the associated heroic myths added to the esteem in which the performers were held. One of the best known and most prolific of harpers was Turlough Carolan (1670-1738). He had lost his sight at age eighteen as a result of smallpox but was encouraged into music by Mrs MacDermott Roe, for whom his father worked. He travelled the countryside on horseback, receiving hospitality from the wealthy landowners and in return composing music in their honour. His musical legacy is hugely significant in that it embraces elements of the ancient Gaelic harping tradition as well as the songs and dance forms of the time, and the very clear influence of the Italian Baroque, particularly the music of Geminiani and Corelli, whose works Carolan would have heard on his travels. The demise of the Irish harpers can be traced to the mid-sixteenth century, at which time Gaelic social structures were crumbling due to the increasing English presence in Ireland. By the end of the eighteenth century the harping tradition was in terminal decline and the Belfast Harp Festival of 1792 marked an attempt to preserve the vestiges of the ancient tradition. Edward Bunting, an Armagh-born organist, was commissioned to transcribe the tunes played over the three days of the festival. It is largely due to his efforts that we still have this music.

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By the nineteenth century the ancient harp and harp music had been largely supplanted by the Irish harp familiar to us today. The repertoire consisted mainly of drawing room music and parlour songs, a long way from the heroic recitations of earlier times. And thus it remained, until the mid 1950s, when the harp experienced a resurgence of interest, which has steadily grown ever since. Both its intense history and the remnants of its music have inspired harpers all over the world to adapt its original repertoire and develop fresh techniques of playing to suit the more modern dancemusic repertoire. This CD is a snapshot of the current rude health of Irish harp playing. The sixteen tracks represent both the wire-strung and contemporary Irish harps. The superb artistry heard in this recording evokes the words of Giraldus Cambrensis, the twelfth century scholar, describing the musicianship of the harper: They glide so subtly from one mode to another, and the grace notes so freely sport with such abandon and bewitching charm around the steady tone of the heavier sound, that the perfection of their art seems to lie in their concealing it, as if it were the better for being hidden. Ellen Cranitch, February 2011

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The HARPERS Gráinne Hambly Gráinne Hambly from Claremorris, County Mayo is an internationally recognised exponent of the Irish harp and is in great demand as a performer and teacher, both in Ireland and abroad. A music graduate of Queen’s University Belfast, she also plays the concertina.  She has released three critically acclaimed solo CDs.  www.grainnehambly.com The Geese in the Bog is a well known jig, first recorded in the 1930s by Sligo fiddler Paddy Killoran, and by renowned uilleann piper Seamus Ennis in 1974, under the title The Lark’s March. A two-part version of the tune was collected by George Petrie (1790-1866) and a similar version appears in O’Neill’s Dance Music of Ireland (1907). There is also another 2-part jig of the same name. Taken from the CD Gráinne Hambly: The Thorn Tree (Own Label, GNCD03, 2006)

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Aibhlín McCrann

Laoise Kelly

Aibhlín McCrann has had a long association with the Irish harp, both as a performer and teacher. As secretary of Cairde na Cruite and director of An Chúirt Chruitireachta, its International Festival for Irish Harp, she has played a lead role in integrating the Irish harp with mainstream Irish traditional music. A music graduate of University College Dublin, she is currently a member of An Chomhairle Ealaíon, the Arts Council.

Laoise is from Westport, Co. Mayo and grew up in a musical household attending fleadhanna, harp competitions and festivals, including the Belfast Bicentennial Harp festival in 1992 where she was presented with the Waterford Crystal harp by the late Derek Bell of the Chieftains. She has toured extensively with traditional group The Bumblebees and has been involved in more than 50 recordings as well as releasing two albums of her own Just Harp and Ceis.

Anna Mhic Dhiarmada Rua was composed by Turlough Carolan for Anne McDermott Roe, the wife of his patron, Henry McDermott Roe. Edward Bunting noted this haunting tune from Rose Mooney, the only female harper at the Belfast Harp festival (1792).

www.laoisekelly.ie

Recorded for this compilation, 2010

Lon Dubh or The Blackbird can be heard on many recordings in various incarnations. Laoise learned this version from the Dublin piper Sean McKeon who got it from the great Donegal fiddler Johnny Doherty via Paddy Glackin. The second tune Maidrín Ruadh (Little Red Fox) is from one of Ireland’s finest collectors of traditional music, Canon Goodman (1828-1896) who got many of his tunes from piper Tomás Dall Ó Cinnéide. From a suite of music of the same name, this is a three-part setting of the tune, familiar to many as it has been taught in primary schools for generations. Taken from the CD Laoise Kelly: Ceis (Laoise Kelly, LK002, 2010)

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Helen Davies Helen Davies studied harp in her native Wales with Ann Griffiths and has a B.Mus from the University of Birmingham, England. She has worked as principal harpist with orchestras in Sweden and Ireland and is now based in Copenhagen. Helen’s main work is in the field of folk and contemporary improvised music with trumpet player / composer Palle Mikkelborg. www.helendavies.dk An Leannán (The Beloved) was written by renowned traditional singer Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin. The instrumental version of this song was played by Helen Davies and Palle Mikkelborg for the Dalai Lama on his visit to Denmark in 2003. Taken from the CD Áilleacht-Beauty: Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin (Gael Linn, CEFCD 187, 2005)

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Paul Dooley

Anne-Marie O’Farrell

Paul studied the construction of medieval Irish harps in Dublin during the early 1980s and has built several instruments. He started his performing career on the wire-strung harp in 1986, playing with the fingernails and damping unwanted string resonance with the fingertips. Paul has also spent the past ten years working on the Robert ap Huw manuscript, the oldest collection of harp music in existence.

Leading Irish harp recitalist, Anne-Marie O’Farrell is especially noted for her unique levering techniques and expansion of the repertoire. Her albums include Heads & Harps, Harping Bach to Carolan, The Jig’s Up, My Lagan Love, Double Strung with Cormac De Barra and Just So Bach. An honours UCD graduate, with a first class honours MA in Composition from NUI Maynooth, she has a varied compositional output. She lectures in composition at DIT Conservatory of Music & Drama and teaches harp at Kylemore College Music Centre (CDVEC).  Anne-Marie performs at international conferences and festivals worldwide.

www.pauldooley.com Port an Deoraí / An Phis Fluich are two slip jigs. Paul was only eight years old when he first heard Port an Deorai or The Exiles Jig played by Alan Stivell. Immediately he was smitten by the sound of the metal strings and he knew he had to make that noise, that magical music, himself. The second tune is a standard piece for the uilleann pipes, its enigmatic title in Irish is often translated to O’Farrell’s Welcome to Limerick. Taken from the CD The Harper’s Fancy (Paul Dooley, PDCD003, 2010)

www.annemarieofarrell.com Prelude from Lute Suite BWV 1006a is taken from Bach’s Lute Suite in E which in turn is derived from the Violin Partita in E for solo violin. To achieve the best resonances on the harp, it has been transposed down to the key of E flat. Interestingly, the harp has occasionally been suggested by scholars as the possible original instrument for Bach’s keyboard manuscript of this piece. Taken from the CD Just So Bach (Anne-Marie O’Farrell, 2008)

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Siobhán Armstrong Siobhán Armstrong founded and chairs the Historical Harp Society of Ireland. She plays copies of harps from the 15th-18th centuries and performs and records internationally with the main period-instrument ensembles and conductors, mainly in Europe. Her early Irish harp is a copy of the medieval Trinity College harp—the national emblem of Ireland—strung in brass and 18-carat gold. www.siobhanarmstrong.com Da Mihi Manum is better known under its Irish title Tabhair dom do Lámh (Give me your Hand) and was written by Ruaidhrí Dall Ó Catháin, a gentleman Irish harper who spent most of his life in the Scottish highlands. This performance incorporates a variant that appeared in Daniel Dow’s A Collection of Ancient Scots Music published c. 1776. Taken from the CD Siobhán Armstrong: The Harp of Ireland (Maya, MCD0401, 2004)

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Irish harp with 29 Wire Strings by Colm Ó Meachair, Dublin modeled on the Trinity Harp

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Michelle Mulcahy

Máire Ní Chathasaigh

Michelle has a BA in Music from University College Cork and is currently pursuing her PhD studies in the University of Limerick. A multi-instrumentalist, she is a regular performer and tutor worldwide. Michelle has released three highly acclaimed albums on the Shanachie label and one with her father and sister on the Cló Iar-Chonnachta label. She was named TG4 Young Musician of the Year in 2006 and was also awarded Female Musician of the Year in 2005 at the Live-Ireland awards in the United States.

Máire Ní Chathasaigh is a multiple All-Ireland and Pan-Celtic winner and the 2001 recipient of the Traditional Musician of the Year - Gradam Cheoil TG4. Máire has developed profoundly influential techniques for harp performance of traditional Irish music that can be heard on her pioneering 1985 album The New Strung Harp, and subsequent six recordings with guitarist Chris Newman with whom she tours worldwide.

The Green Mountain / The Hearty Bucks of Oranmore are two stalwart reels in the traditional repertoire. The Green Mountain is listed in Captain Francis O’Neill’s 1001 series. As Micho Russell calls it ‘The Hearty Bucks of Oranmore’ is a classic old tune. Michelle has adapted these two tunes for the harp in her own individual style.

www.irishharper.com Reel for a Water Diviner was written by Máire in honour of her late father, who numbered the extraordinary ability to find water among his many talents. The arrangement is light-hearted and full of fun, just as he was. Taken from the CD FireWire (Old Bridge Music OBMCD17, 2007)

Taken from the CD Mick, Louise & Michelle Mulcahy: Notes from the Heart (Cló Iar Chonnachta, CICD160, 2005)

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Kathleen Loughnane Kathleen Loughnane references the techniques, ornamentation and energy of the living instrumental tradition in her playing of the music of the Irish harpers from the 18th century. In 1990 she co-founded the group Dordán, whose distinctive mix of Irish traditional and Baroque music has received international acclaim. Both with Dordan and in her own capacity as a solo musician, she has performed and taught in Ireland and at major festivals in the US, Japan and throughout Europe. With Dordan she has released four CDs, and she has also recorded four solo CDs and published three books of harp arrangements. www.oreillydesign.com/harp/ The Queen of the West is a hornpipe that Kathleen learned from the playing of the great Donegal fiddle player, Tommy Peoples. The slow air Eleanor Plunkett was composed by Turlough Carolan (1670-1738). The tune, never resting on the tonic, has a haunting quality. It supposedly laments the death of thirty of Eleanor’s relatives at their castle near Robertstown, Co. Meath leaving her as sole survivor of her family. Taken from the CD Kathleen Loughnane: Harping On (Kathleen Loughnane, Reiskmore Music, 2002) ➔

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Irish harp with 36 Gut Strings by Colm Ó Meachair, Dublin

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Áine Ní Dhubhghaill

Cormac de Barra

Áine Ní Dhubhghaill was immersed in Irish traditional music from an early age. Along with first performance pieces for harp, she has featured in the music for numerous films, TV programmes and CDs. She has toured throughout Europe and the USA both performing and teaching at harp workshops. Áine is a founding member of An Chúirt Chruitireachta, the annual International Festival for Irish Harp and teaches at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin.

Cormac De Barra is the third generation harper in a family of traditional Irish musicians and singers. He first studied with his grandmother, Róisín Ní Shé, in Dublin before going on to study concert harp in the USA. As a traditional harper, Cormac has recorded and toured with many groups and musicians as well as pushing the boundaries of Irish harp beyond the traditional and classical through his collaborations with a variety of artists including actress and punk icon Hazel O’Connor and composer and singer Julie Feeney. He has released three CDs including his latest Tarraing Téad with Máire Breatnach on fiddle and viola.

www.andharp.com Arrane Ghelbee (Song of Dalby) or Song of the Water Kelpie comes from our seafaring Celtic neighbour, the Isle of Man. The air was collected by Sophia Morrison in 1910 and this arrangement is based on a version Áine got from a Manx friend, Charles Guard. Dalby is on the West coast of the island and, according to legend, a mysterious fisherman could regularly be heard singing the air in the evening which enchanted all who heard it.

www.cormacdebarra.com The Monaghan Jig is a popular four-part session tune which Cormac learned from his brother Fionán. It is listed as tune number 1033 in O’Neills Music of Ireland (1903). Taken from the CD Cormac De Barra: Barcó (Cormac De Barra, 2002)

Recorded for this compilation, 2010

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Triona Marshall Triona Marshall trained as a classical musician and was appointed to the post of Principal Harpist with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, where she was exposed to various genres from jazz to medieval, classical and modern. Since 2003 she has toured the world with The Chieftains and recently Triona has started a new band TREAD, combining instruments and dance from across the Celtic world. www.trionamarshall.com Rakish Paddy / The Bucks of Oranmore / The Mortgage Burn is a set of reels combining two session regulars of the tradition with the last tune, whose title has more resonances than most these days, even though it was written about fifteen years ago by Cape Breton fiddler Gordon MacLean. Taken from the CD Triona Marshall: Irish Harp (Triona Marshall, 2006)

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Irish Harp with 34 Gut Strings by Paddy Cafferky, Co. Galway

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Janet Harbison

Dearbhail Finnegan

Starting from the harp room of Sion Hill, Dublin in the mid 1960s, Janet Harbison moved quickly to the world stage after national and international competition triumphs. After 18 years in academe and cross-community work in Belfast (her Belfast Harp Orchestra won a Grammy Award with the Chieftains in 1993), she moved to Castleconnell, Co.Limerick (2002) where she directs the Irish Harp Orchestra.

Born and raised in Nobber, Co.Meath, Dearbhail studied harp under the tutelage of Aibhlín McCrann  and played with The Belfast Harp Orchestra and The Irish National Harp Ensemble founded by Janet Harbison. She has toured extensively in concert and with productions around the world, and highlights include performing for President Bill Clinton during the 50th anniversary of NATO. Dearbhail has released four critically acclaimed CDs and is an accomplished teacher, author, performer and director.

www.janetharbison.com

www.dearbhailfinnegan.com Suantraí is based on the simplest of themes, the rising scale from D to A, then the drop down to C moving onward to low A – signifying the journey of life from its beginning, rising to potential but cut suddenly to another dimension as that potential transforms.  The piece is a lament for Janet’s nephew Daniel Harbison who died in infancy with the music composed for the comforting of the parents in their grief in 1997.

Bridget Cruise / The Deer’s March –  when  Carolan was a very young man, before his blindness, he met and fell in love with a young woman named Bridget Cruise. This is one of at least three airs he wrote in her honour. The second tune is from the Goodman collection and is also know as Máirséail An Fhiadh. Recorded for this compilation, 2010

Taken from the CD Janet Harbison, Prayer (Irish Harp Centre Productions, 1999)

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Gráinne Yeats Born in Dublin, Ireland, and raised bilingually in Irish and English, Gráinne Yeats always had a parallel interest in traditional Irish instrumental music and classical music, playing both gut-strung lever harp and wire-strung cláirseach. At the same time as she studied piano, Irish harp and voice at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin, she was learning traditional songs from the Gaeltacht and was the first professional musician to revive and make recordings of the wire-strung harp. Her double CD The Belfast Harp Festival marked the bicentenary of the 1792 festival and contains some forty of the tunes of the traditional harpers which were taken down by Edward Bunting. Farewell to Music is Carolan’s last piece of music, composed when his health was failing. In 1738 he played it for the last time at the house of his old friend and patron Mrs McDermott Roe in North West Roscommon and a week later he was dead. Taken from the CD Gráinne Yeats: The Belfast Harp Festival (Gael-Linn, CEFCD 156, 1992)

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Irish Harp with 34 Wire Strings by Jan Muyllaert, Co. Meath



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Cairde na Cruite (Friends of the Harp), was founded in 1960 by a visionary group of harp enthusiasts including Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh (later to become President of Ireland). The society has played a major role in the resurgence of interest in the Irish harp and its integration into mainstream Irish Music through its annual International Harp Festival, publications, harp schools and concerts. Cairde Na Cruite is proud to be associated with this RTÉ lyric fm production. 28

Áine Ní Dhubhghaill