Dublin – 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.

a blind girl in the South of Ireland

“There is a blind girl in the South of Ireland who plays on the old wire-stringed Irish harp” says a newspaper from one hundred and twenty-six years ago, without giving us any more information at all. This post is for her, so that we can try to work out who she might have been, or to try and sketch the wider context that might give us a clue as to where she might have come from and what she might have been doing.

Brady

Brady was a traditional Irish harper, but we know almost nothing about him. We only have records about him for one single day, mentioning him performing at two events, a parade and a tea party, on Wednesday 17th March 1841. This post is to discuss the reports of these events, to try and say something useful about him.

Patrick Byrne part 3: 1837-1840

In Part 1, I wrote about Patrick Byrne’s early years and education. Then in Part 2, we looked at his early career, working for patrons in Ireland and England.

By the summer of 1837, Patrick Byrne was approximately 40 years old; he had made a lot of contacts amongst the English and Irish aristocracy, and he had proved himself by his regular job at the rather high-class Royal Hotel in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England.

We will continue the story on Wednesday 18th October 1837, when Patrick Byrne left Leamington Spa and began the journey North to Edinburgh.

Paul Smith

Paul Smith was a traditional Irish harper in the late 19th and early 20th century. I think he was the very last professional Irish harper in the inherited tradition. He died in poverty, ignored and marginalised. This post is to begin gathering information about him.

P. Fitzpatrick

P. Fitzpatrick was a traditional Irish harper in the mid 19th century. I only have a couple of references to him but they contain some hints that can help us start to describe his life and work. Hopefully in time more references to him will be found.

John MacLoughlin

John MacLoughlin was a traditional Irish harper in the first half of the 19th century. He had an interesting working life in Dublin, playing before the King, working in taverns and ending up in poverty. This post is to gather together the different scattered references to him, to build a picture of his life and work.

Carolan

We have a few references to a harper called Carolan in the first half of the 19th century. We are never told their first name. I do not know if these all refer to the same person or not. But this post is to gather these references and see if we can say anything useful.

Joseph Craven

I think that Joseph Craven was a traditional Irish harper, though actually I have no information about his background or musical lineage – it is possible he was a classical pedal harpist. But I think he is more likely to have been one of our traditional boys. In this post, we will go through what we do know about him and see what we think. If new material appears to prove me wrong, we can put it in the comments at the bottom.

Samuel Patrick

Samuel Patrick was said to be a “bad harper” and arsonist. He had a long career working as a traditional Irish harper in Belfast and Dublin, including performing for Queen Victoria’s son, Prince Arthur. This post draws together what I know about him so far.