Simon Chadwick – Simon Chadwick

Francis Hewson

For many decades, Francis Hewson’s name has been mentioned in connection with Dublin harpmaking, mostly based on two or three surviving instruments in museum collections, and on one or two trade directory listings. This post is to try and fill out his life story.

How old was Hempson?

In my write-up of Dennis Hampson almost three years ago, I started by laying out the sources for his name and his age, since as I commented there, “Since his first appearance in the records in 1792, Dennis Hampson’s name and age have been given differently by almost every person who has written about him”.

Some time ago Karen Loomis mentioned the possibility of collating the information about Counsellor Canning, to put parameters on when Hampson may have been with Canning in Garvagh. This post is inspired by that comment, and represents my attempt to track down him, and some of the other people mentioned in the biography of Dennis Hampson.

Amplifying the harp

I have just installed a custom-made pickup into a second harp, and so this post is to document some aspects of this process for anyone else who is interested to make a DIY pickup system for their harp.

Miss Flinn

Miss Flinn was a young woman who played the traditional wire-strung Irish harp in Drogheda in the 1840s. This post is to try and find out more information about her.

Eugene McEntegart

There was apparently a player of the traditional wire-strung Irish harp in Drogheda in the 1840s named Mr. McEntegart. I have only two references so far to Mr McEntegart playing the harp, and neither is entirely unambiguous or satisfactory. I have also found a number of other references to Mr. McEntegart from Drogheda performing concerts on piano, guitar, and singing. I suspect these may all be the same person. This post is to line up all of these references, and to try and work out what is going on, and to make some speculative suggestions about his life and music.

Brian Bowman

Brian Bowman was a harper during the mid 19th century. So far I have only one reference to him, and it is not very satisfactory. This post is to discuss the reference, and the context, and to see what we can usefully say about Brian Bowman.

header photo © Anthere CC-BY

Na gcláirseoirí agus an Ghaeilge / The harpers and the Irish language

One of the columns in my timeline of traditional Irish harpers through the long 19th century is for whether a harper did or did not have the Irish language. This post is to expand on that, to discuss which of the old harpers had Irish, which of them didn’t, and how we can understand the decline and suppression of the wire-strung Irish harp tradition alongside the decline and revival of the Irish language.

Halpin

Halpin was apparently a traditional Irish harper in Drogheda in the 1840s. This post is a somewhat desperate attempt to say something useful about him.

New harp for sale

Pedro Ferreira has made a very interesting and nice new harp which he is offering for sale brand new. This is an unusual opportunity to acquire a new instrument from a respected maker of Irish harps, because normally instruments like this are only available as special commissions, with a waiting list.

Here is what Pedro has to say about it:

Thomas Branagan

Thomas Branagan was a traditional Irish harper in the mid to late 19th century, who played at events in County Louth. This post is to discuss the references to him, and to start thinking about who he was and what we can say about him.