Peter Dowdall

Peter Dowdall was a traditional Irish harper, who lived into the early years of the 20th century. This post is to try and track down some information about him, to start to tell his life story.

Birth and early years

We can calculate when he would have been born by looking at official records. In the 1901 census, taken on 31st March, he gave his age as 72. He died on 28 Apr 1902, and the record gives his age as “73 years last birth day”. So if we believe that, then he would have been born between May 1828 and March 1829. On the other hand, the gravestone erected by his wife says he was 74 years old when he died. But perhaps she meant he was almost 74, and so was born in the early summer of 1828.

We know from the marriage certificate that his father was called James Dowdall.

In the Catholic parish registers of Mellifont parish, online at the National Library of Ireland, there is an entry for 30th June 1828: Baptised, Peter Dowdall, son of James and Ann… I cannot make out Ann’s maiden name, or the names of the two sponsors. But I would tentatively suggest that this might be our man. Mellifont RC parish covers the eastern and western edges of Drogheda town.

Learning to play the harp

Peter Dowdall learned to play the harp in the mid 1840s from Hugh Frazer, who had learned in the early 1820s from Edward McBride and Valentine Rennie, who had both learned in around 1809-11 from Arthur O’Neill, who had learned in the late 1740s from Owen Keenan of Augher. So Peter Dowdall had a good lineage in the inherited tradition of playing the traditional wire-strung Irish harp.

Peter Dowdall learned to play the harp at the Drogheda Harp School, which was run by the Drogheda Harp Society. Both the School and the Society had been set up by Thomas Burke (1801–1844), an eccentric and charismatic Catholic priest; he was in the Dominican priory of St Magdalen in Drogheda from 1835 until his death in 1844. He was an enthusiast for Temperance, Repeal, and Irish culture and language, and he kept setting up Societies which attracted large followings in the town. One of his Societies was the Harp Society which was said to have been founded on 15th January 1842. I think that these different societies were really all part of the same movement rather than different organisations. You can read more about Burke and his various Societies in the booklet, St Magdalen’s Church Drogheda centenary 1878-1978.

A number of different accounts state that Burke himself was a harpist, but I don’t believe this at all. It doesn’t make any sense – we have no record of him learning the wire-strung Irish harp in the inherited tradition, and neither do we have any hints of him being classically trained on the pedal harp. And we have no record of Father Thomas Burke playing the harp at all despite the voluminous newspaper reports of all his activities. I think this has been made up by someone who didn’t have a clue, perhaps in the late 19th or early 20th century. But I have not had much luck tracking down the source of this nonsense.

It is also not totally clear to me how the relationship between the Drogheda Harp Society and the Drogheda Harp School worked. We know quite a lot about how the Belfast harp schools were managed and operated, from c.1809 to 1812 in Pottinger’s Entry and from 1820 to 1840 in Cromac Street. We can see very clearly that the Belfast Harp Society was a subscription organisation for wealthy Gentlemen; the Gentlemen paid money and did fundraising and entertained themselves at lavish dinners and sat on the Management Committee of the school, and they bankrolled the running of the school, paying the rent on the School House and paying the salary of the teacher and the board and lodging of the pupils, and buying harps. The Belfast Harp School itself operated with a traditional harper as the Master and Teacher, and provided free full time “craft apprenticeship” type tuition to fast-track the young pupils to become professional musicians on the traditional wire-strung Irish harp. Prospective pupils had to have a recommendation from a Gentleman sponsor, and the Belfast harp school was explicitly non-discriminatory, admitting boys and girls from Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter backgrounds.

The Drogheda Harp Society by contrast was entangled with the other Catholic Temperance and cultural societies; Thomas Burke was in charge of them all, as the instigator and organiser. The Drogheda Harp School was run from Burke’s living room in the Dominican priory; the teacher Frazer was paid a salary, but everything else seems to have been done in-house. The harps were made locally, by Francis Flood, a carpenter hired by Burke, apparently with some input by the pupils. I don’t suppose any of the pupils were boarding; and the Drogheda harp school seems to have been more about community-building, and spiritual and political revival, and self-improvement for enthusiastic amateurs. We don’t even know if the Drogheda school ran as a full-time harp school, or if the pupils only studied part-time with the teacher Hugh Frazer.

At the start of the Harp Society, there were apparently 12 boys aged between 11 and 16 years. We are told that three months later, Frazer had fifteen pupils learning the harp, and twelve harps for their use in the school. (The Nation Sat 15 Apr 1843 p426) Two of the harp students were said to have been blind boys, and it is stated that the school would give these two the means of earning a living as professional harpers (Drogheda Argus Sat 14 May 1842). I think these two might have been William Griffin and Hugh O’Hagan. An obituary of Burke states that there were three blind boys being trained to be professionals (Drogheda Argus, Sat 2 Nov 1844 p1). But it is not clear what the other pupils were doing, and who they were. They were all locals and had all taken the abstinence pledge, and so I suspect that they were learning the harp as part of their political and spiritual personal and communal development. But nonetheless, I think they were actually doing it, actually learning to play the traditional wire-strung harp in the inherited tradition.

The descriptions of the pupils consistently mentions “boys”, and on Easter Monday 17th April 1843, Burke gave a speech where he pretty clearly indicates that the harp students were all boys; he says he was hoping also to have a harp school for girls up and running within the next year (Vivienne McKeon, ‘One Faithful Harp Shall Praise Thee’: Social and Political Motives of the Drogheda Harp Society, MA thesis, NUI Maynooth, 2005 p34, citing the Drogheda Argus Sat 22 Apr 1843 p1). I have no other mention of the Girls’ harp school in Drogheda, unless the enigmatic Miss Flinn who appeared in the concert on 19th February 1844 might have been a pupil of it.

Where was the school held? The German traveller J. G. Kohl ( Travels in Ireland translated from the German, 1844 p316) described visiting Burke, and gives us a good description of the “reception room” of Burke’s house, hung with pictures of Father Matthew, Moore, and O’Connell, as well as Irish landscapes and Irish saints and apostles. Kohl describes listening to an Irish singer, and a performance on the harp by a traditional harper (presumably Hugh Frazer).

Kohl also says (p321) that Burke’s “whole room was full of harps”. I suppose it is possible that this could have been a different room in a different building, perhaps in the premises of Thomas Burke’s Total Abstinence Society in West Street, where there was a reading room and library. But I think it seems much more likely that this room full of harps was where Burke lived, in the Dominican Priory on Linen Hall Street East, which is now re-named Dominic Street.

The Dominican house and chapel occupied a small plot halfway along the street, a shop which had been purchased by the Dominicans in 1798. We have a nice description of the Dominican house and chapel, in St Magdalen’s Church Drogheda centenary 1878-1978 p25: “From the front, the house looked like any other on the street, but there was a yard behind it, a thatched chapel (59 x 24½ feet in the clear) at the other end of the yard, and a long dark passageway leading from the street to the vestry.”

The old chapel and house are listed (under Rev. Edward McCarthy) on the Griffiths Valuation of 1851, and the location of each is labelled on the Griffiths Town Plan of Drogheda. Plot 11 is the row of buildings shown in my photo below; Plot 10 is the Dominican house where Burke lived. Next to the house is the passage which runs back to plot 9, the yard and the “RC Chapel” behind the house. It is not quite clear what the boundary of plot 9 is; I am guessing that the 9 is written on the yard, and the shaded area behind (to the right) is the chapel, but this may be wrong.

The outline of the present day church has been over-written on to the Griffiths map (bottom centre); if you compare this with the modern satellite view, you can see how all the individual plots from no. 10 (the Dominican priory house) south to the quay were all acquired by the Dominicans, and demolished, and the new enlarged site used to build the current church (1878) and convent building (1881). The building shown across the road from the church is the old Linen Hall. This is long gone and the site is now a car park.

O’Connell’s Monster Meeting at Tara

We should at least mention Daniel O’Connell’s “Monster meeting” on the hill of Tara on 15th August 1843, where one million people were said to have gathered in the political cause of Repeal of the Act of Union. We are told by Patrick Cooney (‘Drogheda Harp Society’, Journal of the Old Drogheda Society 1976 p. 39) that “Five of Father Burke’s harpists played before O’Connell at that memorable Repeal meeting…” Of course we don’t know if Peter Dowdall was one of those five; we do know that his classmate William Griffin was, and Cooney was a descendent of Griffin and owned Griffin’s harp. We also are told that the traditional harper Thomas Hanna played at this event, and I discuss the whole event more on my page about Hanna. The drawing from the newspaper shows us an impressionistic view of one of these young harpers dressed up in robes, hat and wig and false beard, seated on a carriage surrounded by a million people.

Public concert

Anyway, we first actually meet Peter Dowdall at the first public concert of the Drogheda Harp Society. This was held two years after the harp school had been started, and was held in the Mayoralty Rooms on 19th February 1844. The advertisements in the newspapers (Drogheda Conservative Journal, Sat 17 Feb 1844 p3, and Drogheda Argus Sat 17 Feb 1844) include a programmme, giving the tunes to be played by different performers. The people listed as performing are Hugh Fraser (the teacher of the harp school), and six other names: Master Halpin and Dowdall perform together; Miss Flinn; Mr. McEntegart; and then Hugh O’Hagan and J. Branagan perform together.

I have already written up Hugh O’Hagan. I have a few later reference to Branagan and McEntegart working as harpers, but I have no other references yet to Halpin or Flinn. I assume they are all harp students, but it is possible they may have been singers or classical musicians just helping out with the concert. A note at the bottom of the advert says “A selection of Irish Airs will be sung by Gentlemen Amateurs” so perhaps this makes it more likely that the people named above were all harp students. It is all very unsatisfactory.

This is obviously Peter Dowdall performing duets with Mr Halpin. The tunes they play are Saely Kelly, Planxty Connor, The Minstrel Boy, Lord Mayo, and Planxty Power.

End of the harp school

Thomas Burke died on I think Tuesday 29th October 1844 (obituary, Drogheda Argus and Leinster Journal, Sat 2 Nov 1844 p1), and the Harp Society and the harp school apparently came to an end, though I have not yet found any references to its winding up or what happened.

Playing the harp

Peter Dowdall was presumably a competent harpist, since he had spent almost three years learning the traditional wire-strung harp under Hugh Fraser, from January 1842 through to October 1844, when he was aged between 13 and 16.

Presumably, he owned a large floor-standing wire-strung harp, since we know Thomas Burke organised to have harps made locally for the boys in his Harp Society. Nancy Hurrell has published a brief study (History Ireland 21:1, Jan/Feb 2013) of one of these Drogheda harps which was originally owned and played by Peter Dowdall’s classmate William Griffith. Griffiths’s harp is clearly a locally made imitation or copy of John Egan’s design of traditional wire-strung Irish harp, which had become the norm for the traditional Irish harpers from the early 19th century onwards. Presumably, all of the harps made in Drogheda by Francis Flood were copied from the design of Hugh Fraser’s harp. Frazer was presented his harp by the Belfast Harp Society when he was discharged from the school in about 1824-5; it was most likely made either by John Egan in Dublin, or possibly was a Belfast-made copy of Egan’s design.

I have found a few scattered references to Dowdall playing the harp in Drogheda. I am assuming these are all our man. I am sure in time we will find more like this, to be able to say more about his music through his life.

We don’t have any mentions so far between the end of the harp school in 1844, and the early 1860s.

In the early 1860s, before Peter Dowdall married, we have references to the St Mary’s Young Men’s Society in Drogheda. The Catholic Young Men’s Society, which was founded after the Famine in 1849, had Branches all over Ireland, and I think this must be the Drogheda branch. Mr. Dowdall was the President of the St Mary’s society. The Society seems to have been focussed on temperance, Catholicism, and Irish national sentiment.

On Tuesday 5th Feb 1861, the St Mary’s Young Men’s Society held its annual soiree, in its “reading room, James’-street”. I don’t know exactly where the reading room was; the present St Mary’s church on James Street was not built until the 1880s, but it must have replaced an older church on the same site, since the 1835 OS map (Louth sheet 24) shows “R C Chap[el]” there. I presume the reading room was part of the church complex. The newspaper reported in detail on the proceedings, describing about four hundred members present, who had a meal of tea, coffee, confectionery, and fruits. There were various staunchly Catholic speeches, though Dowdall’s speech is interesting in that it is a bit dull and administrative compared to the others, talking about the reading room and the importance of the rules of the society. The long report of the evening finishes by saying:

We may add that the evening’s amusements were varied by Brother Dowdall who performed pleasingly on the harp, and by Brothers Donough, M‘Guirk, and others who recited some beautiful pieces of poetry, and sang admirably several beautiful national airs.

Drogheda Argus, Sat 9 Feb 1861 p3-4

A couple of years later, Dowdall is again mentioned as playing the harp at a meeting of the Society, on Monday 19th Jan 1863. This event was a lecture by Brother John Nolan of the Society, who spoke about Hugh O’Neill, and his “love of the ancient faith and love of country”.

… The lecture was most agreeably diversified by the judicious introduction of patriotic pieces in illustration of the current events. Brother Dowdall’s performance on the harp was most entertaining, and the songs by him, as well as those given with taste by Brothers Caffrey and Dollard lent a particular charm to the evening’s entertainment …

Drogheda Argus, Sat 24 Jan 1863 p5

After this we have a long gap with no references to his harp playing, presumably because he was busy raising a young family.

Marriage and family

On 6th November 1864, Peter Dowdall married Catherine Swift (1841-25 Sep 1922), who was about 13 years younger than him. She was also known as Kate. They married at St Peter’s Catholic church Drogheda. The marriage record says that were both living in Drogheda. He is said to be aged 35 (though according to our calculations above it should be 36); his profession is given as “clerk”, and his father is James Dowdall, but his father’s “rank or profession” is left blank; perhaps he was already dead. Catherine was 23, her profession is given as milliner. Her father was Michael Swift, a boot merchant.

I am not finding James Dowdall in the records at all. There is an Ann Dowdall listed in Griffiths Valuation of 1851, living in Lug Boy, Mell. We will discuss this place below. I wonder if this could possibly be Peter Dowdall’s widowed mother? We can also see Michael Swift listed in Peter Street, Drogheda. I think this must be Peter Dowdall’s father-in-law.

Peter and Kate had a lot of children, not all of whom survived childhood. This table lists all the children I have found, both by searching through the birth and death records, and from the information on the gravestone (see below).

Child’s name	Date of birth	Date of death
James	6 April 1866
Ellen	6 Feb 1868
Peter Stephen	25 Dec 1869	“died young”
Thomas	[4 Jan] 1872	21 Mar 1945 (age 73)
Anne Mary	6 Oct 1873	“died young”
Catherine (“Kate”)	10 Apr 1875	11 June 1937 (age 62)
Mary Josephine	1 Mar 1877	“died young” (age 3) on 6 Dec 1880
Theresa	24 Jun 1878	(still alive in 1901 age 22)
John	26 Apr 1880	“died young” (age 9 months) on 3 Feb 1881
Michael Joseph	13 June 1882	13 Apr 1917 (age 34, shot in France)
Mary (“May” I presume)	24 July 1884	13 Jun 1926 (age 41)
Peter	18 June 1886	“died young” (age 5 months) on 17 Nov 1886

The dates of death come some of them from the grave stone, and some from the death records. Not all of the children are listed on the grave stone; the five marked “died young” are listed with this tag on the grave stone though their dates of death are not given there; I have found some of them in the death registers. Son Michael Joseph Dowdall emigrated to Canada, joined the army, and was shot and killed in France during the first world war.

Where he lived

The birth and death records of the children usefully give us place-names, for the location of the birth or death, but also for the residence of the parents. All of these children were born or died at the same place that Peter and Catherine were from, so I think we can take these places as where they were living at that time.

Date of record	Place name
6 April 1866	Marsh Drogheda
6 Feb 1868	Marsh Drogheda
25 Dec 1869	Mell
[4 Jan] 1872	Mell
6 Oct 1873	Mell
10 Apr 1875	Loughboy
1 Mar 1877	Loughboy
24 Jun 1878	Sunny Side
26 Apr 1880	North Strand
6 Dec 1880	North Strand
3 Feb 1881	North Strand
13 June 1882	William Street
24 July 1884	Fair Street
18 June 1886	17 Fair Street
17 Nov 1886	Fair Street

It is interesting to see the family move around the area of Drogheda. When we first see their address, from 1866 to 1868, they are living in the Marsh area of Drogheda. I assume this is the Marsh Road, south of the river and to the east of the city. Marsh Road runs parallel to the Dublin road, but is a lot lower down, since the Dublin Road is built up on an embankment.

Mell / Loughboy

From 1869 through to 1873, Peter and Kate Dowdall and their young family are listed as living in Mell townland, to the west of Drogheda city. In 1875-1877, the address is given as Loughboy, which is the name of the R168 road running through Mell, and continuing Trinity Street which itself continues from West Street in Drogheda town centre. The street name is written as “Lugboy” on the 1835 OS map (Co. Louth sheet 24)

Sunny Side

In 1878, they are listed as living at Sunnyside. This is the previous name for St Mary’s Presbytery, which is a rather grand house south of the Dublin Road, and next to the Union Workhouse. Sunny Side is clearly marked on the 1908 OS map (Co Louth sheet 24), and although the general area is now full of houses called Sunnyside Cottages, in the 1908 map it is the only house shown.

North Strand

In 1880-1 they are listed as living at North Strand. This is on the north bank of the river, under the Boyne Viaduct.

17 Fair Street

In 1882, they are listed at William Street, which runs along to the south of St Peter’s Church of Ireland. In 1884 to 1886, they are listed at Fair Street, which is a continuation westwards of William Street. The only one of these that actually gives a street address is in June 1886, when they are at 17 Fair Street, which is a nice Georgian town-house.

11 Dublin Road

We find the family listed in the 1901 census, at 11 Dublin Road. This is just along from the Union Workhouse, and in front of Sunnyside. The census return lists Peter Dowdall as head of the family, aged 72; he is “Clerk of Union”. Catherine his wife is aged 60. Thomas their son is aged 29, and he is “asst clerk of union”. Their daughter Theresa is aged 22, and their daughter Mary is 16. All are Roman Catholic, all can read and write. All are born in the town of Drogheda. None are listed as having the Irish language.

The house on Dublin Road is where Peter Dowdall died, and where the family still lived at the 1911 census, when the son Thomas is listed as head of the family, with Kate his mother, Mary his sister and a 16 year old servant girl called Kate [Floody].

Peter Dowdall’s professional life

Peter Dowdall did not work as a harper. Instead, he worked as a clerk or accountant. We can use the same list of his children’s birth and death certificates to track his career.

Date	Peter Dowdall’s occupation
6 April 1866	accountant
6 Feb 1868	Clerk
25 Dec 1869	Cashier
[4 Jan] 1872	Clerk in Flax Mill
6 Oct 1873	Clerk of the Drogheda Union

In 1866, when he was aged about 37, he is listed as an “accountant”. In 1868 he is a “clerk”; and in 1869 a “cashier”. None of these give us much information about where he may have been working, but we can see he was a solidly middle class professional man., keeping accounts and minute books, dealing with invoices and reports, and that kind of thing.

In 1872 we get the interesting information that he is working as “clerk in a flax mill”. We can imagine him as part of a team working in the back offices, keeping the accounts and ledgers for the business. Thom’s Directory for 1872, p1296, says “Three flax-mills give employment to upwards of 1,000 persons; that called St Mary’s, which is the largest, cost £30,000 for its erection.”

By October 1873, when he was aged 44, he had got his permanent job, as clerk of the Drogheda Union. My table stops at this point because every listing after that is the same, that he is Clerk of the Union. He continued in this post until his death in 1902.

The Poor Law Unions were elements of local government or state administration, responsible for levying a specific tax on local ratepayers, which funded state handouts or support for impoverished people. The most visible way this was done was by running the Workhouses, which were grand institutions where poor people could go to. The workhouse would provide extremely basic food and shelter.

Drogheda Workhouse stood on the Dublin Road, where St Mary’s Hospital is now. Peter Dowdall’s work as Clerk of the Union would have been to manage all of the records and accounts of the Union. I have found loads of official notices in the newspapers, on behalf of the Union, placed by Peter Dowdall as Clerk of the Union. I think this was quite a high powered civil service type administrative job, with a lot of responsibility.

The Register Offices were also part of the Poor Law Union, and so Peter Dowdall also had the role of Superintendent Registrar, responsible for recording births, marriages and deaths. If we look at the pages of the register, we see that each entry (including Peter and Kate Dowdall’s own children’s births and deaths) is signed by the Deputy Registrar; but the bottom of each page is countersigned by Peter Dowdall as Superintendent Registrar.

An obituary describes his professional work:

…For some thirty years Mr Dowdall filled, with great credit to himself, the onerous position of Clerk of the Drogheda Union, and a more painstaking or conscientious official was not to be found in Ireland. Mr Dowdall’s devotion to his official work was indeed proverbial, and often, more especially since the introduction of the Local Government Act, the pressure of his official duties kept him engaged in his office until long after what are usually regarded as official hours. This strenuous attention to duty was not without its effects on his health, and the sudden breakdown which came in the end was, in some measure, at least, the result of these long official vigils which often saw him engaged at work up till 10 or 11 o’clock at night…

Drogheda Independent, Sat 3 May 1902 p4

Later references to him playing the harp

We have a few later references to Peter Dowdall being able to play the harp; people knew he could play and knew that he had learned at the harp school.

[Father Burke] … formed a society of young men, and brought a professor from the Harp Academy of Belfast to teach the youths how to play upon our national instrument. If I do not make a mistake, I believe the worthy Clerk of the Drogheda Poor law Union was a not undistinguished pupil of Father Burke’s Harp Society.

‘The Men of Other Days III’, Drogheda Argus, Sat 4 Apr 1885 p5

There is a mention of Peter Dowdall in a long review of the different stalls in the Grand Bazaar in Drogheda. The description of stall no. 5 includes this aside:

… The stall is very showily got up. It is surmounted by a harp – we were going to say life-size – large enough to tempt one to ask a certain popular and able official of one of our public boards, an accomplished harpist – one of the last of the harpers of Father Burke’s brigade – to strike up “The Harp that once.”…

Drogheda Argus, Sat 26 Oct 1889 p5

Concert performance

On Wednesday 21st October 1891, a “Grand Ballad and Costume Concert” was held in the Whitworth Hall, Drogheda. The concert was a fundraising event for the building fund of the Memorial Church (I think this is St Peter’s Roman Catholic Church on West Street).

The programme of the evening was printed in the newspapers (Drogheda Argus, Sat 17 October 1891 p4), and shows that the second half was a theatrical performance, while the first half had consisted of 14 different turns by different performers including an amateur string band. Most of the acts are “local talent”, classical and operatic singers who were to sing a wide variety of classical or popular songs, apparently with piano accompaniment.

Included on the programme as the ninth item, we have “Harp solo, Selection Irish and Scotch Airs, Mr Dowdall.”

The Argus also has a long and enthusiastic preview of the event.

… Not the least attractive part of the event will be the solo harp performance of Mr Peter Dowdall. It will come with a pleasing surprise to many to know that it is not figures alone that the accomplished Clerk of our Union has at his finger ends, as an expert in estimates but music as well. As a harpist he can make the national instrument discourse its native strains melodiously …

Drogheda Argus, Sat 17 October 1891 p4

The long and enthusiastic review of the concert reports that the hall was full, and describes Peter Dowdall:

… The next item on the card was anxiously awaited – Mr Dowdalls harp solo. On coming forward, not like the minstrel boy, “with his wild harp slung behind him,” but carrying a valuable Erard before him, he was welcomed with a peal of applause. After a few preparatory twangs of the wires, amidst deep silence, he made the native instrument speak native melody melodiously – a succession of old Irish airs – “Believe me of all” “The Harp that Once.” &c – came forth under his fingers with a tunefulness that was welcomed with much applause. Responding to an encore, he played “Widow Machree” in capital time and tune…

Drogheda Argus, Sat 24 Oct 1891 p4

This is a superb atmospheric description of Peter Dowdall playing his tunes, but we have some technical terminology that we need to untangle here. In fact I don’t think there is any technical information here, I think it is totally uninformed impressionism on the part of the newspaper journalist, but we have to read through the text to try and get a grip on what Peter Dowdall was actually doing.

The newspaper reviewer seems to express surprise that Peter Dowdall came on to the stage “not like the minstrel boy, with his wild harp slung behind him…” I think the reviewer had probably never seen an actual traditional Irish harper before, though he may well have seen a classical harpist playing a pedal harp. The reviewer may well have had a vague impressionistic sense that an Irish harper would conform to the Romantic paradigm set out in Tom Moore’s song, and that his harp would be a small or miniature instrument, a shrunken version of the small medieval harps that had dominated the romantic and historical imagination of Irish harping in contrast to the large floor-standing instruments actually used by the tradition-bearers. I discuss this a little more on my post on a blind girl in the south of Ireland.

When the reviewer states that Peter Dowdall came on stage “carrying a valuable Erard before him” we can think of this in two different ways. Erard had been the leading London maker of classical pedal harps, and other makers copied Erard’s mechanism as well as his visual styles, and so I think saying “an Erard” to mean a classical pedal harp was a bit like saying “a biro” meaning a ball-point pen, or “a hoover” meaning a vacuum cleaner.

So was Peter Dowdall walking on to the stage carrying a classical pedal harp in front of him? This seems unlikely for a couple of different reasons. First of all, while a full size traditional wire-strung Irish harp is easy enough to carry, weighing in at about 12kg, a classical pedal harp is much heavier and harder to pick up and walk with. An early 19th century “Grecian”-style pedal harp might weigh about 20kg; a mid 19th century “Gothic” style pedal harp might me more like 30kg. (these are guesses, I have not actually weighed any 19th century pedal harps).

Secondly, we have no other hints that Peter Dowdall had learned to play classical harp techniques. But we do know that he spent two or three years as a young boy learning the traditional Irish harp fingering techniques on a traditional wire-strung Irish harp, under the teacher Hugh Frazer. I suppose it is possible that Dowdall had purchased a classical pedal harp and removed all the mechanisms and restrung it with brass wire strings to play in the traditional Irish way but this also seems somewhat unlikely. I think it is far more likely that he had a traditional wire-strung harp, which the reviewer mis-identified or mis-understood. I think it most likely that he had one of the instruments that were made by Francis Flood and the boys at the Drogheda Harp Society in the 1840s, copying John Egan’s design of traditional wire-strung Irish harp. And that the reviewer’s romantic guff about the Minstrel boy’s wild harp and the valuable Erard, tell us nothing except that Dowdall had a large floor-standing instrument.

The description of the “preparatory twangs of the wires” is also interesting but not very technical. I presume this is just more vague non-technical atmosphere from the journalist.

I think that this concert on Wednesday 21st October 1891 is the latest and most recent public performance by a traditional Irish harper who had learned in the inherited tradition that I have yet seen a reference to.

Later memories

There are also memories of Peter Dowdall playing the harp, from not long after he died.

On Tuesday 13th November 1906, the Gaelic League organised a concert and lecture in the Mayoralty Room in Drogheda. The concert consisted of the usual middle-class revival versions of Irish music, with demonstration dances, songs, and choruses as Gaeilge sung by choirs of schoolboys and schoolgirls. In the interval, Edward Lambe gave a lecture on “Irish bards and music” from earliest times; towards the end of the lecture he mentioned the Drogheda Harp Society. He read from the concert programme of Feb 1844 (see above), and then he said:

… I am pleased to state that one of the performers named in the programme was Mr Peter Dowdall, late Clerk of the Union, and father of Mr Thos Dowdall, the present worthy Clerk; and here we are tonight after a lapse of over 60 years assembled in this, the very same historic chamber, and in the very same cause, Irish music and Irish language…

Drogheda Independent, Sat 17 Nov 1906 p5

We also have a discussion from the local archaeological society, suggesting that it would be worth researching the harp school, though nothing seems to have come of it:

Mr. Biggar suggests that the story of the Drogheda Harpist Society, which Father Burke, O.P., founded in the forties in the last century, should be related in the pages of this Journal. It is an interesting story enough; we have gathered some stray notes about the members of it which in a future issue we hope to publish. We may remark that the last surviving member of that Society died a few years ago – Mr. Peter Dowdall, the late Clerk of the Drogheda Union; another in Mr. W. Griffin…

Notes and Queries, Journal of the County Louth Archaeological Society, Vol 2 no. 2, Sep 1909, p207

I don’t think Peter Dowdall was the last surviving member, since W. H. Grattan Flood refers to another still alive in 1906, four years after Dowdall had died.

We have an enigmatic reference which might be to Peter Dowdall, or might have been one of his old classmates; but he seems to have been the best known in the town. Charlotte Milligan Fox describes the Drogheda Harp Society in her 1911 book Annals of the Irish Harpers (p58-9), mostly relying on Kohl’s account. But she says

To this account of Kohl’s the present writer would add the evidence of a cousin, who died lately at a very advanced age. In the middle of life she opened a ladies’ school at Drogheda, and was delighted on arriving in the town to hear of an old harper who rendered ancient Irish music in an exquisite fashion. She invited him to the school to play for her pleasure and for the pupils, and finally induced him to give her and her sister some lessons. This must have been one of the survivors of the Harp Society.

Charlotte Milligan Fox, Annals of the Irish Harpers (1911) p59

It is hard to know what to make of this. I have not managed to track down any of Charlotte Milligan Fox’s parents or aunts or uncles, and so we have no way of knowing the name of this cousin who ran a “ladies’ school” in Drogheda. We can understand the harper coming in to the school to play for the girls, but what does him giving the two cousins “some lessons” mean? It takes more than “some lessons” to learn the playing techniques and way of playing the traditional wire-strung Irish harp. I would presume these two cousins of Charlotte Milligan Fox were already educated ladies able to play the piano or even classical harp, and so maybe the “lessons” were just a few tunes. Charlotte Milligan Fox seems to have been woefully unaware of the fundamental technical differences between the traditional wire-strung Irish harp, and the classical harps.

Death and burial

Peter Dowdall died suddenly at home, at breakfast-time on Monday 28th April 1902.

… Mr Dowdall had been at work as usual up to Saturday evening, and was preparing to go to his office on Monday morning, when he got suddenly ill. Father Farrell, C C, St Mary’s, was at once summoned to administer the consolations of religion, and medical aid was also sought. Dr Bradley was soon in attendance, but medical skill was unavailing, and a few minutes after he had received the last Sacraments, Mr Dowdall, who retained consciousness to the last, peacefully passed away…

Drogheda Independent, Sat 3 May 1902 p4

Peter Dowdall’s body was buried in the New Cemetery, to the north of the town, at midday on Wednesday 30th April 1902. The grave is marked by an impressive tall gravestone.

ERECTED
BY
KATE DOWDALL, DUBLIN ROAD,
IN
MEMORY OF HER
BELOVED HUSBAND
PETER DOWDALL,
WHO DIED APRIL 28^TH 1902.
AGED 74 YEARS.
AND THEIR FIVE CHILDREN
PETER STEPHEN, ANNA MARY,
MARY JOSEPHINE, JOHN,
AND PETER, WHO DIED YOUNG.
THE ABOVE NAMED
KATE DOWDALL,
DIED SEPT. 25^TH 1922.
AGED 81 YEARS.
MAY DOWDALL,
DIED JUNE 13^TH 1926.
KATE DOWDALL, DIED 11. JUNE 1937
THO^S DOWDALL, DIED 21. MARCH 1945
R.I.P

His estate which passed to his widow Kate was valued at nearly £300. He did not leave a will, and no records of the case seem to have survived the 1922 fire.

After he died, the next meeting of the board of the Drogheda Union appointed his son Thomas Dowdall (who had been assistant Clerk) to become the Clerk on a temporary basis “pending the appointment of a permanent officer”. (Drogheda Argus, Sat 3 May 1902 p4). It looks like Thomas’s appointment was made permanent.

Legacy

When Peter Dowdall died, there were three other traditional Irish harpers still alive that I know of. There was Paul Smith in Dublin, who died on 14th August 1904. He had apparently learned in the late 1830s, perhaps at the Belfast school. There was Peter Dowdall’s un-named former classmate from the Drogheda school in 1842-4, mentioned by W. H. Grattan Flood as being still alive in 1906. And there was George Jackson in Belfast, who died on 21st July 1909; he had learned apparently in the late 1840s or early 1850s from Patrick Murney.

It fascinates me how all these people were ignored by the Gaelic revival of the 1890s and early 1900s. The revivalists were swept up in their enthusiasm for the classical-style lever harp, newly designed and manufactured in 1897 in London, and which was taught, in classes organised by Conradh na Gaeilge, by the classical pedal harpist Owen Lloyd. The classical re-imagining of the Irish harp music and tradition swept all before it, and the actual tradition bearers were simply ignored.

We know that the revivalist William Savage went to George Jackson in 1908, and wrote down anecdotes about the old harpers, but Savage did not ask Jackson about playing techniques or music. We know that W.H. Grattan Flood got a friend to interview the anonymous Drogheda harper in 1906, but he was only interested to get information about Patrick Byrne, not music or playing techniques. And we know that the revivalist and piper Séamus Ó Casaide had a lead on Paul Smith in 1902 and suggested that he could be asked to perform in a concert; but at the actual concert it was the classical harpist Owen Lloyd who actually appeared. No-one went to ask Paul Smith about music or playing techniques.

And so it is no surprise to find that (as far as we know) no-one seems to have thought of going to Peter Dowdall to ask about music or playing techniques. Dowdall, as the inheritor of centuries of tradition and lineage, could have taught young harpers, continuing the inherited tradition in a genuine renewal of the living tradition. But he did not, and no-one organised for him to. And so the inherited tradition came to an end, and the gaslighting of the lever harpists prevented anyone from learning the playing techniques of the wire-strung Irish harp; and Dowdall and his colleagues were written out of the story and became basically unknown. We are only just now rediscovering this continuing story of the inherited tradition of Irish harp playing into the 20th century; and we are only in the past few years finally piecing together how the traditional wire-strung Irish harp actually worked, and how these big floor-standing super-resonant wire-strung harps were actually played in that inherited tradition.

Map

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