The Jackson Harp: Craft, Commerce and Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Dublin

This lecture takes a rare nineteenth-century pedal harp by William Jackson Junior as its central focus and situates it within the thriving pedal-harp tradition that existed in Irish urban centres in the first half of the nineteenth century, particularly in Dublin. The pedal harp formed part of a European-derived art-music culture, embedded in concert life, domestic music-making, and private musical education.

Using the Jackson harp as a material and historical anchor, the lecture explores the wider network of pedal-harp making, selling, and playing in nineteenth-century Ireland. It examines how these instruments were produced and marketed, the economic and social conditions under which they were bought and sold, where they circulated, and who acquired them, with particular emphasis on the role of wealthy amateur musicians and domestic music-making. The Jackson harp is placed within the Egan–Jackson family network, a Dublin harp-making dynasty whose history was shaped not only by craftsmanship and commercial success, but also by internal family tensions and competing interests.

By centring on a single surviving instrument and examining the historical context of its manufacture and use, the lecture demonstrates how material objects can illuminate the musical, social, and economic history of the pedal harp tradition in Ireland, linking craft, commerce, and musical life in the nineteenth century.