Early Irish Harp Talk in association with the Historical Harp Society of Ireland

Dr. Siobhán Armstrong—speaker

In honour of National Harp Day, Dr. Siobhán Armstrong, founding director of the Historical Harp Society of Ireland, will deliver a 30-minute illustrated talk on the fascinating history of the old Irish harp with wire strings, which was played until the early 1800s.

The HHSI was founded to return to the world the true sound of the oldest Irish music, lost to the living tradition 200 years ago. Using applied research and hands-on artistic work on copies of early Irish harps, they are restoring Ireland's iconic, historical instrument and its repertory to contemporary Irish culture.

Would you like to learn more about sound of the brass wire strings, played with long fingernails, on the medieval Brian Boru harp depicted in the Irish national emblem? Would you be interested to know what the famous Irish harper, Turlough Carolan’s eighteenth-century songs and harp melodies might have sounded like on his larger version of a similar kind of instrument? Then you’ve come to the right place!