Traditional playing on wire harp had gradually declined from the eighteenth century onward, despite several attempts to resurrect the tradition with the Belfast Harp Festival and the establishment of the Irish harp societies in Dublin, Belfast and Drogheda. This change in instrumentation reflected the development of harp playing in Ireland. Initially only pedal harp was taught but later in the century lever harps started to appear in photographs of the music students indicating a shift in the instruments used and the repertoire played. The Loreto school was founded in the 1870s and instrumental lessons on harp were offered from this time. This tune book was most likely a source of repertoire for the students. The Irish Loreto nuns who established the school taught harp to their students in Ballarat.
#Small handheld harp archive#
I had part of the answer in the reason why I was at the archive in the first place. I wondered where this stereotypical image came from, why it was used, who produced the book and what was it doing in the Loreto archive? A circlet encompassed his head and the whole outfit was completed with a long cape that descended from his shoulder to the ground, gathering around his feet. The harper wore a tunic with a belt and had cross bandaged leggings.
The front pillar of the harp was rounded and the small section of the sound box that could be seen was covered in Celtic knotwork. The drawing depicted a male harper sitting on a medieval style stool with a small harp on his lap. All the text for the publication was in Gaelic but the cover, helpfully, had a wonderful drawing of a ‘traditional’ Irish harper on the front. Looking a bit like a homemade pamphlet, the tune book was titled An Cruitire (The Harper). A couple of years ago I was doing some research at the Loreto College archives in Ballarat when I came across a very interesting book of harp music.
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