Tag: Long 19th century

This is a project to try and find out about Irish harpers who were continuing to play in the inherited tradition from 1790 through to about 1910. You can check my timeline showing all of the harpers.

These people (mostly men) learned from teachers who themselves had learned from teachers and so on in a lineage of tradition back through the 18th century harpers, playing on floor-standing wire-strung traditional Irish harps, using the traditional Irish harp playing techniques.

Murphy

We have a couple of different references to a harper named Murphy. The first reference is to a pupil at the Belfast harp school, and the second is from a Repeal parade in Cork city six years later. I don’t know if they are the same person or not. This post is to line up the information we have so that we can consider the possibilities.

Patrick McGrath

Patrick McGrath learned to play the traditional wire-strung Irish harp in the early 19th century. This post is to gather what scanty information we have about him. Perhaps in future more references will turn up and we can add them to the bottom of this post.

Patrick Byrne’s farm at Beagh

Because we have so many documents relating to the traditional Irish harper Patrick Byrne, there are some interesting side-lines that can be followed up, which are not strictly part of his life. The story of the farm at Beagh is one of these stories.

Harp Society House, Pottinger’s Entry, Belfast

Arthur O’Neill taught a harp school in Belfast from 1808 to 1812. The school was at a house in Pottinger’s Entry from May/June 1809 through to about the summer of 1812. This post is to collate different references to try and work out where the house was, and what more we can say about it.

Patrick Byrne part 1: 1790s to 1822

Patrick Byrne is perhaps the best-known of the 19th century Irish harpers. We have a huge amount of information about him, too much for a single post. So I thought I would deal with sections of his life in turn. This first post in a series on Patrick Byrne will gather together all the information I can find about his birth, his family, his place, his early years, and his education up to the point where he was discharged from the harp school with his certificate and harp.

Alexander Jackson

Alexander (or James) Jackson (or Jack) was a traditional Irish harper and teacher of the traditional wire-strung Irish harp in Belfast in the mid 19th century. This post is to gather all the information I have about him, to try to begin to tell his life story.

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.

Arthur Morgan

Arthur Morgan was a traditional Irish harper in the early 19th century. This post is to draw together the references to him so that we can start to say something useful about him.

Harp Society House, Talbot Street, Belfast

I have already written about the Irish Harp Society running its harp school from a house in Cromac Street for 18 years, from 1820 through to about the end of 1838.

At around the end of 1838 the harp school was moved to a new premises in Talbot Street, where it ran for over a year, until some time in 1840 when it appears to have shut for good.

This post is to try and work out where on Talbot Street the Harp Society House was, and whether we can say anything useful about it.

Andrew Bell

Andrew Bell was a traditional Irish harper in the middle of the 19th century. He had an excellent performing career, playing public concerts and being patronised by the gentry and aristocracy. This post is to try and gather everything together to start to tell the story of his life.