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.

Date & Time: 16 August, 2:30pm - 3:15pm

Venue: National Museum - Collins Barracks, Palatine Room, Collins Barracks , Benburb St, Dublin 7, D07 XKV4

Event Information: https://www.heritageweek.ie/event-listings/the-harp-in-nineteenth-century-ireland-heritage-instruments-and-music

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.

Date & Time: 19 August, 6pm - 7pm

Venue: Oak Room, Mansion House, Dawson Street, Dublin 2, D02 AF30

Event Information: https://www.heritageweek.ie/event-listings/the-harp-in-nineteenth-century-ireland-heritage-instruments-and-music