The mystic chords of memory
An egregious omission from my recent History of Ireland in 100 Goodbyes was “The Harp that Once .” Thomas Moore’s 1807 ballad bade farewell to a whole culture, that of Gaelic Ireland, as personified by a once-noble instrument, by then silenced.
By the third day of the festival, a certain Theobald Wolfe Tone noted in his diaries: “The harpers again. Strum, strum, and be damned.” That really might have been the end of the line for the old tradition. But no. As regular correspondent Owen Morton reminds me, the spirit of the Belfast Harp Festival of 1792 is itself now being revived in an annual event, co-hosted by Harp Ireland and a group called Reclaim the Enlightenment, and held both north and south of the Border.
The very latest result of the renaissance is an interesting book and CD that landed in my inbox this week: New Songs from Old Stories by Sandie Purcell.
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