Scots-Irish Music The Harp

Replica of the Scottish 'Lamont' Harp

To quote from that paper on Ulster-Scots Music by ‘Queens University's – School of Anthropological Studies’:

“Up until the end of the eighteenth century, itinerant harpers regularly crossed back and forwards between Ulster and Scotland, playing for the Gaelic and Anglo-Irish aristocracy, as well as prosperous Ulster-Scots families. The Harping tradition declined as European classical music came to occupy the attention of the ruling classes, but before they disappeared from the scene, harpers interacted with fiddlers and pipers in Ulster, and some of the features of the Gaelic song tradition were preserved, particularly in the emerging genre of Orange songs”

“In Scotland, in the area once inhabited by people known as Picts, musical instruments that are obviously frame harps are represented on six monuments. Perhaps earliest is the example carved on a monument known as Aberlemno No. 3, a red sandstone slab over nine feet in height, standing beside the narrow road leading from the town of Forfar to the village of Aberlemno (Angus).”

This being the case the Harp has a far longer history in the hearts of the Scottish people than the Bagpipes, as shown by these quotes below & the information on this web page:

“Many outsiders associate Scottish folk music almost entirely with bagpipes, which has indeed long played an important part of Scottish music. It is, however, not unique or indigenous to Scotland, having been imported"

& this

"The harp, or clarsach, has a long history in Scotland, rivalling even the bagpipes for the position as national instrument.
Triangular harps were known as far back as the 10th century, when they appear on Pictish carvings, and harp compositions may have even formed the basis for pibroch, the folk bagpipe tradition."

It is known that the Pipes had only one drone until the mid 1500’s when the second drone was added.
The first written mention of the ‘Great Pipes’ was in 1623 when a Piper from Perth was prosecuted for playing on the sabbath.
The third drone only appeared early in the 1700’s.

So compared to the Harp, the Great Highland Bagpipe is just a youngster!

The Harp which the Lowlanders brought over with them would have been the gut strung instrument which was to eventually displace the old Gaelic Clarsach, which had wire strings:

“Here we should note the distinction between 'harparis' and 'clarsacharis'. Too often in our own time the one implies the other. In 1507 the harp referred to was probably the Lowland gut-strung harp; the clarsach was used in the Highlands and Ireland and was strung with brass wire. They were clearly two different instruments, the gut strings being played with finger pads and finger nails being required to pluck the brass strings. However, they obviously existed side by side, ...”

More evidence to show this distinction comes here:

“Scottish records of the 15th and 16th centuries show that both the terms "harp" and "clarsach" were in use at the same time, and seem to indicate that a distinction was made between gut-strung European-style harps and wire-strung Gaelic clarsachs.”

That Protestants in Ireland also played Harps is not in doubt:

“Times grew harder still for harps and harpers between 1650 and 1660 when Cromwell ordered the destruction of harps and organs in both catholic and Protestant circles.”

We know Harps & Harpers travelled to Scotland & that they travelled in the other direction too:

“Indeed, harpers from Ireland were frequent in Scotland.
Rory dall O'Cahan spent most of his life there (1601-50), and left his imprint in the many puirts (ports), notably Rory dall's port in the Straloch MS (1627-29) which Burns used later for Ae fond kiss.”

Rory Dall O’Cahan was also responsible for composing the old Air “Aislean an Oigfear,", also known as "O'Cahan's Lament" which later had words put to it by an Englishman, Fred Weatherly:

“By an extraordinary piece of good fortune Fred Weatherly (1848-1929) had already written a song called "Danny Boy" in 1910 and it only required a few alterations to make it fit the beautiful melody he received from America."

It was no surprise that Weatherly's lyrics had an immediate appeal and went straight to the hearts of Irish people world-wide for Fred wrote "Danny Boy" with a view to bringing both traditions together in Ireland.
In his autobiography Piano and Gown (1926) he expressed the hope that "Sinn Feiners and Ulstermen alike would sing his song".

An interesting idea is that the Trinity College Harp, that most Irish of Irish symbols, may actually have been made in Scotland:

"The earliest surviving Gaelic harps currently are dated to about the 15th century. Two, the Trinity College harp, one of Ireland's national treasures, and the Queen Mary harp in Scotland's Museum of Antiquities, are so similar in size, construction, and decoration that they appear to have been made by the same hands. Their resemblance to a Scottish 15th-century stone carving of a decorated harp suggests their place of origin. According to Sanger and Kinnaird (see Bibliography), opportunities for the Trinity harp to travel across the Irish Sea from Scotland into Ireland were "many, varied, and extremely colorful."

So it is safe I believe to assume that the Scots brought Harps over with them & it would appear that over the years they have simply fallen out of favour, perhaps encouraged by the fact that the Harp is such an iconic symbol for the Irish.

However, as there may well be a tradition of a small number of Scots-Irish folk playing the Harp, there is then nothing to stop present day Scots-Irish folk embracing this ancient of Scottish instruments, in particular the gut string Harp which they must surely have brought with them, a move which may well have contributed to the decline of the old native wire-strung Harp.

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