About Celtic Harps

exerpted from research by Alison Vardy

The Irish are generally credited in the popular press with bringing the harp to Europe. It is believed by some scholars that the harp was actually brought to Europe from Egypt by the Phoenicians in pre Christian times as a trade good. The paths of the Phoenicians can be traced by the distribution and acceptance of the harp. Versions of the harp (or Kora harp) exist from the Mediterranean Basin to Northern Europe to cultures all the way around coastal Africa and up to the Island of Madagascar. The harp may have arrived in Europe as well with successive Indo-European migrations from Southwest Asia.

The harp and Celtic harp music has been an important emblem of Irish nationalism since the 10th Century. King Griffith of Wales employed harpists in his court at the end of the 11th century. By the end of the 12th century, manuscript illustrations show harps with more advanced designs. The Irish were by then playing harps with brass, or bronze, strings. Records from the 15th century show that both the terms "harp" and "clarsach" were in use at about the same time and seemed to have been a distinction between gut-strung European-style harps and wire-strung Gaelic clarsachs of Scotland and Ireland.

The earliest surviving harps from Scotland and Ireland date to about the 15th century. The Trinity College harp, one of Ireland's national treasures, is the harp from which the national symbol of Ireland is copied. The characteristic shape of an Irish Harp is familiar from Irish coins and bottles of Guiness Beer. Henry VIII of England had the Irish harp impressed on coins after obtaining control over Ireland. For centuries, the harp was an integral part of Irish life. Traveling harpists in Ireland, were known to be at the focal point of rebellions - so much so that the harp was banned. Turlough Carolan (1670-1738), the blind Irish folk harpist, wrote hundreds of tunes - many of them are still very popular today.

The period starting from the 1700s during English rule in Ireland was difficult for Irish harpers as the harp as a folk and court instrument was suppressed to prevent a resurgence of nationalism. Harps were burnt and harpers executed. The tragic extinction of this harping tradition at the end of the eighteenth century had a number of causes: the Angloization of the Irish (and Scottish) cultures, the increased popularity of step-dancing and the fiddle, and the inability of the harp to play the musical accidentals required for classical music, which started coming in to vogue in Dublin and Edinburgh during the then Baroque era. Only in Wales was the Folk harp tradition unbroken.

By the late 18th century it was clear that traditional Irish harpers were nearly extinct. Because harp music had always been handed down orally, very little of it has been preserved. The most important attempt to save the music was made in 1792. In order to encourage and preserve the old harping tradition, a festival was held in Belfast and newspaper advertisements invited all Irish harpers to come and play for cash prizes. Only ten harpers, ranging in age from fifteen to ninety seven, could be found. A nineteen year old church organist named Edward Bunting was hired to notate the music, but with few exceptions only the melodies, and not the bass lines were taken down. Bunting had so much enthusiasm during the festival that he continued to collect traditional tunes throughout his life, publishing three collections, in 1797, 1809, and 1840. Bunting collected not only the music, but much lore and technical information from the harpers. All of the surviving O'Carolan melodies date to these works. Few other melodies survive and this proves to be an historic oversight; now we know little about how the harp was actually played.