Tag: photography

Knowing about na comhluighe, but not using it?

Patrick Byrne explained to the collector, John Bell, about the unison strings on a Gaelic harp which are called na comhluighe, or the sister strings:

The open on the bass string of the Violin is one of the Sisters on the harp. The next string below on the harp and it, were tuned in unison, for which reason they were called the sisters. These two unison notes are sometimes called, and in ancient times were called, Ne Cawlee – or the companions. Afterwards they were called the Sisters.
The harp is tuned to the Sister note

(John Bell’s Notebook, cited in Henry George Farmer, ‘Some Notes on the Irish Harp’ Music & Letters vol. XXIV, April 1943)

But did Byrne actually use na comhluige on his own harp?

Continue reading Knowing about na comhluighe, but not using it?

Monasterboice

On Saturday I was driving south towards Dublin when we spotted the road sign turning to Monasterboice. I zoomed off the motorway and we stopped to look at the amazing high crosses there. I was especially pleased to get a good stereo pair of the carvings on the Cross of Muiredeach.

Continue reading Monasterboice

Shrine of St Patrick’s Tooth

I have always been strangely fascinated by the shrine of St Patrick’s tooth. Its shape, like an outsized sporran, is kind of fun, and the idea of it containing an actual tooth from the head of St Patrick is just odd enough to be distracting.

Here’s my 3D photo of the 14th century embossed decoration on the reverse side. I am pretty pleased with how this stereo image has turned out.

Tentsmuir

I was out in Tentsmuir this afternoon and I saw the most beautiful tiny patches of birch wood. The land was very wet and the trees all had standing water at their toes. The path through Reres wood degenerated into a ditch filled with standing water too deep to pass through – not muddy, but beautifully clear and tawny.