Stringing

This page gathers historical and literary evidence for old Gaelic harp stringing. This is written information about the nature of the strings used on the old Gaelic harps. Because there is so little hard technical information in the old historical sources, I have included obscure, vague and poetical information here as well.

Early texts use Latin or Gaelic words for the string material as well as for the instrument; we can rarely be certain that we understand exactly what is being referred to by these names, and they may well have been less specific than modern technical organological terms.

As always, if you know of something I have missed out, please do let me know. I will add items here as I discover them.

Gerald of Wales

Gerald of Wales visited Ireland in the 12th century, and described the strings of the cithara used there:

Medieval poetry

Medieval Irish poems mention musical instrument strings.

Medieval Breton lays refer to British and Irish harpers:

Irish harps abroad

Italian music scholar Galilei describes the Irish harp:

German music theorist and composer Michael Praetorius describes a chromatic Irish harp:

English music scholar James Talbot describes a couple of Irish harps:

French music scholar Trichet describes an Irish harp:

Wire-drawing in household accounts

There are household accounts which itemise the purchase of wire for stringing Irish harps:

Recycling Giraldus

Giraldus’s description was very influential for a long time, and a number of later writers silently quote or translate Gerald’s elegant Latin, whether or not it is actually suitable or true for the situation they were applying it to. This next example, describing the 16th century Scottish Highlanders, may well be true, the careful use of two different words to translate Gerald’s cithara implying that there is a real distinction being drawn here.

Buchanan is describing Scottish Highland manners:

Monipennie made a translation of Buchanan into English, but he quietly expanded Buchanan’s fidibus to distinguish between clairshoe (for clarsach, i.e. Gaelic harp) and harpe (presumably for continental Gothic bray harp):

In the late 16th century, Stanihurst wrote a text basically recycling all of Giraldus’s criticisms of the Irish. Here’s what Stanihurst has to say about the harpers:

O’Sullivan Beare wrote a refutation of Stanihurst:

Lucius also write a refutation of both Stanihurst and Giraldus. Here he is not specifically referring to stringing practice, but describing the harp traditions more generally:

later poems and stories

The Irish poet Pierce Ferriter mentions gold strings in his elaborate poems. The first mention is a very subtle musical allusion to a woman combing her hair, with a lot of allegorical symbolsim, so can’t be taken literally:

The other reference to gold strings is in a poem praising a beautiful harp:

The same poem includes further description of “cláirseach an óir” (the harp of gold) in a context which may be referring to stringing or to decorative fittings - the poem is perhaps deliberately unclear.

A story, probably from the 17th century but using archaic language and themes, mentions a fairy musician:

A song collected from one of the last of the old harpers in the 1790s includes this line, given as an English metrical translation from the lost Gaelic original:

William McMurchy

At the bottom of a list of measurements of an early Gaelic harp, the Gaelic scholar, piper, harper and poet William McMurchy wrote in about 1750:

This would be wire used for the manufacture of pins.

The Trinity College harp

Ouseley owned the Trinity College harp in the late 18th century; he described strings that were on it in 1756:

Fanning’s harp

It is a pity that stringing information does not seem to have been collected by Edward Bunting, who noted much otherwise lost Gaelic harp music from the playing of the 18th century harpers, as well as technical details about their playing. In all the Bunting manuscripts, stringing is mentioned once:

i.e. changing from brass to iron between a’ and b’ just over an octave above na comhluighe. None of the extant harps can be identified as Fanning“s.

Mr O’Neil’s harp

In the romantic novel The Wild Irish Girl, the author Sydney Owenson includes a number of footnotes which quote correspondence sent to her. This from “a very eminent modern Irish bard, Mr O’Neil”:

This may well be Arthur O’Neill (1734 - 1816). It is not clear if the “four kinds of wire” refer to different gauges or different metals.

19th century Society harps

At the beginning of the 19th century the last of the indigenous Gaelic harpers died. To continue the tradition, Societies were set up in Belfast and Dublin, running schools initially taught by two of the last of the old harpers, Arthur O’Neill and Patrick Quin. Harps for these societies were made by local harpmakers including Egan of Dublin. The Society schools contnued for a couple of generations, and a few of their students survived to the end of the 19th century.

Some of the Society harps by Egan and others are still extant with their original strings; they have not yet been studied. String regimes were also noted down or published by various sources: Patrick Byrne and Patrick Murney were both harpers from the Schools.

Patrick Byrne’s harp

This specification was dictated to John Bell by the harper Patrick Byrne (1794 - 1863) in about 1840:

‘treble wire’ may indicate steel or iron as a contrast to ‘brass’. Without knowing about Flower’s catalogue, we cannot start to put figures to these gradations, and we don’t know how Byrne’s harp was tuned.

Ixion’s harp

An anonymous writer using the pen-name Ixion owned one of the Society instruments; he described its stringing and setup in an article published in 1872:

His mention of “the rule” makes me wonder if he had taken down instructions from one of the Society harpers. The instruction “brass or steel” is not very specific!

Patrick Murney’s harp

Patrick Murney was one of the very last harpers who had been through the 19th century Society schools. He told James Laverty how to string a harp in 1882:

The material is not mentioned.

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This chart shows the dates and the materials mentioned.

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References

1. Gerald of Wales, Topographica Hibernica, Wales c.1186, quotation and translation from C. Page, "Voices and Instruments of the Middle Ages", London 1987. ^

2. Find ua Báiscne , text and translation online at ucc.ie ^

3. Forbhais Droma Damhghaire, from the 15th century Book of Lismore, cited in Eugene O’ Curry, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, vol 3, p.362 ^

4. Agallamh na Seanórach, late 12th century. cited in Eugene O’ Curry, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, vol 3, p.223 ^

5. The Vulgate Merlin, France, early 13th Century, quotation and translation from C. Page, "Voices and Instruments of the Middle Ages", London 1987. ^

6. Anatole Boucherie, La Roman de Galerent, Comte de Bretagne, par le trouvère Renaut, 1888, p.62 (lines 2320-1) ^

7. Vincentio Galilei, Dialogo della musica antica et della moderna, 1581, p143 ^

8. Praetorius, Syntagma Musica vol II, Wolfenbüttel 1618-20, tr. David Z Crookes, OUP 1986, p.62 & pl.XVIII ^

9. Joan Rimmer, “James Talbot’s manuscript: Harps” Galpin Society Journal,16, 1963 ^

10. Pierre Trichet, Traité des Instruments de Musique, c.1640. ed. François Lesure, 1957, p.146 ^

11. Fletcher, Drama and the performing arts, Brewer 2001, p. 422 ^

12. George Buchanan, Rerum Scoticarum Historia, 1582, p21 ^

13. John Monipennie, 1594, in his translation of George Buchanan's History of Scotland, quoted in Keith Sanger & Alison Kinnaird, "Tree of Strings (Crann nan Teud)", Kinmor Music 1992. ^

14. Richard Stanihurst, De rebus in Hibernia gestis, quote and translation by Nicholas Carolan in Éigse Cheol Tíre - Irish Folk Music Studies, vols. 5-6, 1986-2001 ^

15. Philip O’Sullivan Beare, Zoilomastix, quote and translation by Nicholas Carolan in Éigse Cheol Tíre - Irish Folk Music Studies, vols. 5-6, 1986-2001 p.53-6. ^

16. Gratianus Lucius, Cambrensis Eversus, ed. & trans. Matthew Kelly, Dublin, 1848. ^

17. Dánta Piarais Feiritéir, trans. Pat Muldowney. Aubane Historical Society, 1999, p.18-19 ^

18. Dánta Piarais Feiritéir, trans. Pat Muldowney. Aubane Historical Society, 1999, p.42-43 ^

19. N.J.A. Williams, “Eachtra ghruagaigh na creige agus na cruite ’s an tiompáin”, Éigse XIV, 1971-2 ^

20. Edward Bunting, ms29 (Queens University Belfast, Special Collections MS4/29) p.51 (f23r). See also Simon CHadwick, Progressive Lessons for Early Gaelic Harp, 2014, p.37 ^

21. Keith Sanger & Alison Kinnaird, Tree of Strings, Kinmor 1992, p.167 ^

22. Ralph Ouseley, early 1780s, in a manuscript copy by J. Hardiman, 1820, British Library, ms Egerton 74 f184. ^

23. MacDonnell's letter is printed in Fox, Annals of the Irish Harpers, 1911, p.281 ^

24. Sydney Owenson, The Wild Irish Girl, 1806. Vol. 1, available online at www.sydneyowenson.com/TheWildIrishGirl.html ^

25. John Bell's notebook, quoted in Keith Sanger & Alison Kinnaird, Tree of Strings (Crann nan Teud), Kinmor Music 1992. Also in H.G. Farmer, Some Notes on the Irish Harp, ‘Music & Letters’ vol XXIV, April 1943. ^

26. ‘English Mechanic and World of Science’, Vol. XV, London, 1872, p. 510-11. Available on google books in some contries. Thanks to Karen Loomis for sending me this. ^

27. Patrick Murney’s Rules, dictated in July 1882 and published in James O’Laverty, The Irish Harp, in "Denvir’s Monthly", 1903 ^