England – Simon Chadwick

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.

Patrick Byrne part 8: Christmas 1848 to July 1849

Header image courtesy of University of Glasgow Archives & Special Collections,
Papers of Henry George Farmer collection, MS Farmer 332 f5r

This post is part 8 of my series about Patrick Byrne.
Part 1 covers Patrick Byrne’s early years and education, down to his discharge from harp school in 1822.
Part 2, looks at his early career, working for patrons in Ireland and England from 1822 to 1837.
Part 3 covers his first visit to Scotland over the winter of 1837-8, and his tour of Ireland in 1839-40.
Part 4 looks at him playing for Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle, and then touring mostly in Ireland and a bit in England in 1841-4.
Part 5 covers just six months, from when he went to Scotland at the beginning of 1845 until he headed back to Belfast on 25th June, including the Waverley Ball and having his photographs taken.
Part 6 covers the rest of 1845, and the whole of 1846, touring in the north of Ireland and the English midlands.
Part 7 covers Scotland in the first half of 1847, Ireland for the second part of 1847; England in the first part of 1848, and back in Ireland in Autumn 1848.

By the end of 1848, Patrick Byrne was in his early 50s; he was well established as a touring performer in Ireland, Scotland and England, both as a public “celebrity” and with networks of private patrons right up to the top of the social hierarchy.

This post includes two very different but equally interesting episodes in his life. One is his professional tour of the south of England; and the other is when Patrick Byrne met the antiquarian John Bell, who wrote down a load of very useful traditionary information about the Irish harp tradition which Byrne had apparently told to 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.

Patrick Byrne part 2: 1822-1837

In Part 1, I wrote about Patrick Byrne’s early years and education. This post is to gather references to the first part of his professional career.

Thomas Brown

Thomas Brown was a traditional Irish harper in the mid 19th century. This post is to collate the couple of references we have to him, to try and tell a bit of his life story.

Roger Begley

Roger Begley was a blind traditional Irish harper from Belfast. He married a Dublin girl and they went to live in England.

I had not heard of Roger Begley until a few years ago. His name doesn’t appear in any of the books or articles about the Irish harp tradition. This post summarises what I have found from digging in the archives, to try and give us a picture of his life.