Carolan fragment

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National Library of Ireland LO 1635, part of the Joly Gift.

Printed after 1742; a single partial untitled undated section survives. Known variously as "Compositions of Carolan" or the "Carolan-Delaney Fragment", this unique copy of an Irish printed book contains 14 pages (numbered 6-19) with no date or title. It is printed in folio on one side of the paper only. All the music faces the centre, so the first 7 leaves show verso only, the last 7 recto only. It has 23 tunes, all commonly attributed to Carolan, and all with unusual basses that, although not "authentic" harp basses, certainly seem to have Gaelic features.

This book was once thought to have been printed by the Neal brothers in 1721. However the paper can be dated by watermark to 1742, giving an earliest possible date for the printing. An otherwise unknown book of Carolan tunes were published by Dennis Connor of Dublin in 1748, in association with Carolan's son and Dr. Patrick Delaney. Grainne Yeats has argued that this is our fragment.

A complete facsimile or edition has never been published, but facsimiles of individual pages can be found e.g. p. 6. Mr. James Betagh and jigg to the above in Sandra Joyce, ‘An Introduction to O'Carolan's Music in Eighteenth-Century Printed Collections’ in Irish Musical Studies 4, ed. P.F. Devine & H. White 1996 p.301; pp. 7 & 10, with Lady Athenry, Planxty Bourke & Mr Daniel Kelly in Complete Collection of the much admired old Irish Tunes The Orignal and Genuine Compostions of Carolan the Celebrated Harper and Composer (1670-1738) Suitable for Most Instruments, Ossian Publications 1984 (1st edition), pp8-9 (wrongly cited there); and p.17, Mr O'Connor in Donal O'Sullivan's Carolan, the Life, Times and Music of an Irish Harper, 1958, 1991 & 2001. For an online facsimile of part of p.19 showing Fairy Queen, and analysis of the music, see Alasdair Codona's article Gaelic Harmony (direct link to facsimile corrected Jan 09)

Simon Chadwick