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In the 18th and 19th century we get some more detailed information, though the data bacomes more explicit and useful as the tradition delines and dies out. The most useful data of all - detailed reports of tuning and stringing schedules - comes from the later 19th century, when the last two or three harpers, second-generation products of charitable schools trying to keep the tradition alive, were old and declining.
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:
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Widow Black who keeps a pinnery in Frances Street sells all kinds of harp wire „ | |
This would be wire used for the manufacture of pins. Presumably ‘all kinds’ refers to different gauges; we might expect the metals to be brass and iron although silver is possible too.
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:
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Fanning's harp had thirty-five strings, fourteen below and nineteen aboove the 'Sisters' - the eleven upper strings of iron wire „ | |
This can be illustrated as a string chart (PDF), showing the metal changing between a' and b' just over an octave above ne cawlee. None of the extant harps can be identified as Fanning's.
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’:
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My harp has thirty-six strings ... of four kinds of wire, increasing in strength from treble to bass „ | |
This may or may not be Arthur O'Neill (1734 - 1816). Presumably the four ‘kinds’ refer to four different gauges rather than four different metals.
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; while Ixion and Armstrong got hold of and measured Society instruments.
This specification was dictated to John Bell by the harper Patrick Byrne (1794 - 1863) in about 1840:
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Largest wire to be got in Flower the wire drawers Church St., Dublin, 5 wires of this, 3 wires of the next size, 6 of the next, | |
This can be represented in a string chart (PDF). ‘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.
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:
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RULES FOR STRINGING THE IRISH HARP OF THIRTY-SIX STRINGS Use hard drawn wire
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This can be represented in a string chart (PDF). The diamters are suggested based on the Birmingham Wire Gauge8. The material is not mentioned.
An anonymous English writer using the pen-name Ixion owned one of the Society instruments; he described its stringing and setup in an article published in 1872:
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On the thirty-six string harp the rule is to take the fifteenth string, counting from the top down, as the key-note, and make it G by means of a tuning fork. Lest the wires not bear this tension in the upper octaves, the fourteenth string may be tuned as G in the first instance, thereby reducing the tension throughout. When the harp, however, is strung with sufficiently fine or well-tempered wire, it will bear the full concert pitch, the more so as I believe this pitch has of late been reduced. And I may here mention at once that the eight lowest strings consist of No. 18 wire, the next six of 20 wire, the next seven of 22 wire, the next seven of 24 wire, and all the rest 25 wire brass or steel. ...the highest note at the top is G and the last note in the bass is also G. In some of Egan's improved harps, however, two additional strings below low G were added, making thirty-eight in all... I have one of Egan's harps. ...the lowest G string is 4ft. 6in. long, the next G is 3ft., the next G 1ft 8in., the next G 10 1/2 in., the next G 7in., and the highest G 3in. „ | |
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"English Mechanic and World of Science", Vol. XV, London, 1872, p. 510-119 | |
This can be represented in a string chart (PDF). Lengths are interpolated between Ixion's measurements. The gauge numbers are almost identical to Patrick Murney's (above). Ixion does not mention ne cawlee and so I have omitted it in my chart. The calculated tension profile shows a very interesting difference between bass and treble: above na cawlee g, the wires are quite thin steel and the tension light. The bass octave below na cawlee is much heavier and tighter gauge brass; and the sub-bass octave below cronan G is even tighter and thicker. This would give a characteristic 'split' tonal and tactile profile to the instrument; no attempt seems to be made to have the tension gradually increase through the range of the harp.
Robert Bruce Armstrong owned one of the Society instruments; he described its stringing and setup in his book in 190410
This can be represented in a string chart (PDF). Lengths are interpolated between Armstrong's measurements. This Society harp is strung basically with only 2 gauges of wire; a thin steel above middle c' and a thick brass below. This is very similar to the V&A harp. No attempt is made to graduate the tension across the range of the instrument so at middle c' there is a huge step in the tension. The note names are scratched onto the soundboard but they do not go down below g hence we can't tell if this instrument was tuned with ne cawlee or not.
As the Gaelic harp tradition came to an end, a new instrument, descended from the European style of pedal harp with gut strings, took over its role as "the Irish harp". The inventor of the new type of harp was frank about his innovation:
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J. EGAN most respectfully solicits the attention of the nobility and the musical world, to his Newly Invented Portable Irish Harp. Those beautiful instruments are strung with Gut*... ...the strings, tuning, fingering &c. are exactly the same as the Pedal Harp;... [footnote] *The Ancient Irish Harp, was Strung with Wire. „ | |
Now with nylon strings as often as gut, this "lever harp" is the most common sort of harp found in Ireland and Scotland.
Simon Chadwick
about this website
© Simon Chadwick
First published 7th June 2004 at www.clarsach.net. First published here 26th November 2004, last changed January 2009