The wire-strung cláirseach was traditionally linked with the Gaelic nobility. By 1792, ten of the old Irish harpers could still be gathered in Belfast. Here are 10 moments in its story, from a medieval harp in Trinity College to UNESCO in 2019, each from the sources linked under it.
Timeline
14th or 15th century The Trinity College harp is made. Often called “Brian Boru’s harp”, it is a wire-strung cláirseach now in the Long Room at Trinity College Dublin, and with the Queen Mary and Lamont harps one of three surviving medieval Gaelic harps. Charles Vallancey wrote in 1786 that it had been Brian Boru’s; George Petrie dismissed that in 1840 and dated it to the 14th or more probably early 15th century. It bears the O’Neill arms, but its first owners cannot be proved. William Conyngham presented it to Trinity in 1782.
1670 – 25 March 1738 Turlough O’Carolan. Born in Nobber, County Meath, son of a blacksmith; the family moved to Ballyfarnon, County Roscommon, in 1684 on the invitation of the MacDermot Roe family. Blinded by smallpox at eighteen, he was apprenticed to a harper by Mrs MacDermot Roe and at twenty-one set out with a horse and a guide to travel Ireland composing for patrons, which he did for almost fifty years. He is buried in the MacDermot Roe crypt at Kilronan, near Ballyfarnon. Some call him Ireland’s national composer.
1695 – November 1807 Denis Hempson (Donnchadh Ó hAmhsaigh). Born at Craigmore, County Londonderry, and raised around Magilligan, he began playing at eighteen. In Edinburgh in 1745 he played before Charles Edward Stuart. He played some of Carolan’s music but disliked it as too modern. His harp, made in 1702 and now called the Downhill Harp, was bought by Guinness in the 1960s and is on show at the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin. The Belfast Harp Festival article gives his age in 1792 as 96, playing with long, crooked fingernails.
July 1784 The Granard harp meetings. Eight years before Belfast, the first of three annual harp competitions was held at Granard, County Longford, paid for by John Dungan, a Catholic merchant living in Copenhagen. Arthur O’Neill and Charles Fanning played there.
11–14 July 1792 The Belfast Harp Festival. Organised by members of the Society for Promoting Knowledge (the Linen Hall Library) in the Assembly Room on Waring Street, to gather the last traditional players and write down their music. Ten Irish harpers and one Welsh harper came. Charles Fanning of Cavan took first prize, Arthur O’Neill of Tyrone second and Rose Mooney of Meath third. Only William Caer, aged 15, was under 45. The festival coincided with Belfast’s Bastille Day celebrations.
1796, 1809, 1840 Edward Bunting’s collections. Bunting, born in County Armagh in 1773 and a classically trained organist, was nineteen when he was hired to note down the harpers’ tunes at Belfast. He published three volumes: 66 tunes in 1796, 77 in 1809 and 151 in 1840. He ‘corrected’ some tunes by classical rules, so a few were printed in keys the harpers could not have played, but many tunes would have been lost without him. His papers, lost for years, turned up in 1907 and are at Queen’s University Belfast. He died in Dublin in 1843: the article gives 17 March in one place and 21 December in another.
Early 19th century John Egan’s new Irish harps. As the old tradition died out, the Dublin maker John Egan, self-taught and at first a pedal-harp maker, began the revival in Ireland. Among his twelve models were the wire-strung “Improved Irish Harp” and the smaller “Portable Irish Harp”, which he marketed as the shape of the Trinity College harp.
1922 and 1945 The harp becomes the state’s symbol. A left-facing image of the Trinity College harp was used as the national symbol from 1922 and formally granted to the State by the Chief Herald of Ireland in 1945. It is on the arms, the euro coins and the old currency. A right-facing harp had been registered as a Guinness trade mark in 1876, after use on labels from 1862. The heraldic harp was drawn from a thin shape left by a bad 1830s restoration; the British Museum rebuilt the harp in its wider form in 1961.
Mid-20th century The modern revival. Traditional harp-playing died out in the late 18th century and was revived in the mid-20th century by the McPeake Family of Belfast, Derek Bell, Mary O’Hara and others. Most revivalists played the gut-strung (often nylon after the Second World War) neo-Celtic harp with the pads of the fingers, not the old brass-strung harp plucked with long nails.
2019 Irish harping on UNESCO’s list. UNESCO inscribed Irish harping on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2019 (14.COM). Its entry notes that most harps today are hardwood, strung with gut or nylon and played with the fingertips, not the old wire-strung harp played with the nails, and that women and girls are now the main players.
The harp on the state arms, the euro coins and the old Irish pound is modelled on the Trinity College harp. See national symbols and Irish money. For the music and dance that grew up around it, see Irish music and Irish dance.
Quick answersDid the Brian Boru harp belong to Brian Boru?
No evidence says so. The claim goes back to Charles Vallancey in 1786; George Petrie called it a forgery in 1840 and dated the harp to the 14th or early 15th century, centuries after Brian Boru, who was High King in the early 11th century.
What was the Belfast Harp Festival?
A gathering of harpers in Belfast on 11–14 July 1792, organised to preserve the dying tradition. Ten Irish harpers and one Welsh harper played, and Edward Bunting wrote down their tunes.
Who was Turlough O’Carolan?
A blind harper and composer, born in Nobber, County Meath, in 1670, who travelled Ireland for almost fifty years composing for patrons. He died on 25 March 1738 and is buried at Kilronan, County Roscommon.
Is the Irish harp on the UNESCO list?
Yes. Irish harping was inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2019.