Charles Byrne

Little Munster Mantle

The next tune in the group of four that I am looking at just now, is titled in the manuscript “Little Munster Mantle”. The notation consists of a line of dots, starting on B, and then two lines of notation a 3rd lower starting on G. I think this represents a live transcription notation, written here by Edward Bunting at speed from the performance of a tradition-bearer some time in the 1790s.

The notation is on Queen’s University Belfast, Special Collections, MS4.29 page 93/89/098/f44r. Lets look at the transcription in more detail.

Caitlín Ní Uallacháin

Caitlín Ní Uallacháin was one of the personifications of Ireland in poetry and song. There is a whole nest of variant and different tunes titled Caitlín Ní Uallacháin (Anglicised as Cathleen or Kitty Nowlan), but we don’t have enough time or space to go into them all here. All we can do is look at four versions of the tune in Bunting’s manuscripts.

An gearrán buidhe

The Yellow Horse is a curious little song air. We have three independent transcription notations of variants or versions of this tune, under two different titles, in Edward Bunting’s transcription notebooks from the 1790s. They are all three a bit tricky to understand.

An londubh agus an chéirseach

The Blackbird and the Thrush is a very beautiful old tune. We have what may be a live transcription of a traditional harp performance, noted down by Edward Bunting in the 1790s. However, as usual with Bunting’s work, all is not straightforward, and he has messed us around a lot.

Planxty Dermot

On Queen’s University Belfast, Special Collections, MS4.29 page 191 there are two tunes written in a very similar style. At the top of the page is “Planxty Dermot” and at the bottom is “Cathal Mac Koo”.

Two difficult sections

One reason it has taken me a long time to get to my next tune is that there are a lot of pages in Queen’s University Belfast, Special Collections, MS4.29 which I have skipped. There is a big section of mostly or entirely Denis O’Hampsey material from pages 164 to 172, which I am skipping because I am concentrating on the other harpers. Then there are two sections which don’t seem to be harp transcriptions. I am less certain about identifying what these are, since my focus has been on spotting the harp style and idiom.

Ar Bhruach na Sionainne

I made a video demonstration of the tune of the banks of the Shannon, based on Edward Bunting’s live transcription of the playing of an old Irish harper, perhaps Daniel Black in 1796.

Edward Dodwell

Edward Dodwell is another of the tunes in the “difficult” section of Edward Bunting’s field notebook between pages 14-40. You can see in my tune list spreadsheet that Ned Dodwell, on p.40, is at the very end of that section. In fact, since the next facing page from p.40 is p.43, I think we are missing a page here, and I think the missing page had a neat copy of Ned Dodwell.

Diarmaid Ó Dúda

I made a demonstration video of Diarmaid Ó Dúda (DOSB 37) based on the live field transcription written down by Edward Bunting in the 1790s.

Charles Byrne is listed as one of the harpers who went to Belfast for the harpers’ meeting in July 1792. The collector, Edward Bunting, says: