Talk with Music Performance -The Harp in Nineteenth-Century Ireland: Heritage, Instruments and Music

An Illustrated Talk with Music Performance by Professor Clíona Doris and Dr Clare McCague (TU Dublin)

For National Heritage Week, Clíona Doris and Clare McCague from Technological University Dublin present an illustrated talk on Ireland’s harp tradition in nineteenth-century Ireland, including performance of repertoire from the period.

Drawing on the collection of nineteenth-century harps preserved at the National Museum of Ireland, this talk considers what surviving harps can reveal about a changing musical landscape, as well as the efforts to preserve and revive a harp tradition in Ireland. Linking with this year’s National Heritage Week theme of ‘Heritage at Risk’, this talk also presents a current project funded by the Heritage Council’s Heritage Stewardship Fund, which is to conserve and restore to playing condition a rare nineteenth-century pedal harp by Dublin maker William Jackson Junior (active in Dublin between c.1840–47), currently held in the custody of TU Dublin Conservatoire. William Jackson Junior represents the final generation of a successful Dublin harp-making lineage, started by his grandfather John Egan.

This event is drop-in, with no pre-booking required, and spaces will be allocated on a first-come, first-serve basis. The event will be taking place in the Museum's Palatine Room, off Clarke Square. This space is accessible by lift and ramp.