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ANNALS OF THE IRISH HARPERS

EDWARD BUNTING.

(From a Daguerreotype in the possession of Dr Louis MacRory.}

ANNALS OF THE IRISH HARPERS

BY

SMIT ER & CO.

'5 O PLACE

191 1

\_All rigkts reserved]

ANNALS OF THE IRISH HARPERS

BY

CHARLOTTE MILLIGAN FOX

WITH PORTRAITS

LONDON SMITH, ELDER & CO.

15 WATERLOO PLACE 1911

[All rights reserved]

X

ML

DEDICATION

TO THE

RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY, K.C.V.O., PRESIDENT OF THE IRISH FOLK-SONG SOCIETY

PREFACE

IN preparing for publication the "Annals of the Irish Harpers," my constant aim has been to do justice to the memory of Edward Bunting, who rescued from oblivion the last authentic records of ancient Irish Minstrelsy. The honour of this achievement belongs rightly to him and is shared, moreover, by the town of Belfast. Here he listened to the strains of the last minstrels ; here, cheered and encouraged by an enthusiastic band of fellow workers, he lived and laboured from childhood till middle age. It is a somewhat remarkable fact that the capital of the Ulster Plantation Colony should have been the scene of such efforts to pre- serve the relics of the civilisation of native Gaeldom.

Edward Bunting's collections of Irish music were first brought to my notice by one who is now amongst the most venerable of Belfast citizens, the Eight Hon. Robert Young, P.O. I had then just recently completed my musical studies on the Continent, and had come home to settle in Ireland. It was news to me that this commercial centre had anything to boast of in connection with music.

When in course of time I became Hon. Secretary of the Irish Folk-Song Society (founded 1904), Mr Young con- tributed to our journal an article on Bunting and his work, which awakened great interest. Meantime through the medium of the Feis Ceoil and the Gaelic Revival in Ireland renewed attention was directed to the harp. Belfast was not behindhand, the instrument again became popular on

vii

PKEFACE

concert platforms, and indeed occasionally a picturesque band of harps graced the orchestra of the Ulster Hall.

In consequence a friend wrote asking me to select a harp for her daughter, at one of the leading London warehouses. I went there, and, ha\ing selected an instrument, was about to leave, when it came into my head to ask, " Do any old wandering harpers ever come in here to buy strings ? " The attendant smiled somewhat cynically, and I felt that my question had been a foolish one, for the days of the last minstrels are surely over. " Well, no," he said ; " we have no such customers ; but, by the way, a gentleman was in here not long ago, who would interest you. He bought a harp, and when giving the order he said, * It is only right that I should have a harp in my house ; for it was my grandfather who preserved the music of the ancient Irish harpers.' "

Eagerly I asked for the name and address of this purchaser, who turned out to be Dr Louis MacKory of Battersea. A brief correspondence resulted in his inviting me to his home to inspect certain papers belonging to his grandfather, who was no other than Edward Bunting. On my arrival at the doctor's house, he met me with the abrupt remark, " Now I hope you are an Irish woman, for I think some one from Ireland should handle my grandfather's papers."

When I said that I came from Belfast, his countenance cleared, for had not Bunting's labours from first to last been connected with it, and he seemed satisfied that he had found a fit and proper person to go over the old manuscripts.

At this time I hoped for nothing more than some gleanings of unpublished airs and some personal memoirs and letters for the Irish Folk-Song Journal ; but as I went through the mass of documents which Dr MacRory put before me, I saw that a great amount of unpublished material had survived. Here were musical note-books, letters, faded documents, which demanded most careful consideration. I grew more

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and more absorbed in the study of them, and in the end the doctor decided that I must take the box away with me, and investigate them at leisure. Then he added to my delight by telling me that there were other papers in a box in Dublin, and that he would try to obtain them for me. He explained that Edward Bunting had two daughters, Mary Ann and Sarah. The latter, who married Mr K. MacEory of Belfast, was his own mother. Mary Ann Bunting, who married a Mr James Wright in Dublin, had a daughter Florence. This lady is the wife of an eminent Dublin architect, Thomas Manley Deane, son of Sir Thomas Newenham Deane. Certain of the Bunting manuscripts were in her possession.

On the occasion of my next visit to Ireland, I went armed with an introduction from Dr MacEory and inter- viewed Mrs Deane, with the satisfactory result that another box of Bunting manuscripts was confided to me.

I may here in passing comment on the fact that Bunting's family has been largely connected with engineering and architecture. His father was a mining engineer, his son Anthony, who died in early manhood, showed great talent as an engineer, and his granddaughter's marriage connected her with a family in which architectural skill has shown itself hereditary. Her husband is now Sir Thomas Deane, having been knighted by King George, on the occasion of the opening of the College of Science, Dublin, of which he was one of the architects.

The investigation of all this mass of papers occupied me pleasantly for many months. In the note-books I found many beautiful airs which Bunting had never published, and which I drew on for the Irish Folk-Song Journal. Some I arranged and published as Songs of the Irish Harpers with words in English and Irish. However, as I pored over the manuscripts, I felt that there was material here for a

)k. The manuscript " Life " of Arthur O'Neill, the harper,

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deserved to be published in full, though Bunting, with the assistance of Samuel Ferguson, had used many anecdotes from it in the preface to his last collection. The journal of Patrick Lynch had never seen the light, and Dr MacDonnell's letters were of great interest. Above all, I felt that a memoir of Bunting was called for, and so embarked upon the task of authorship.

From first to last I have relied much on the help of my sister, Miss Alice Milligan, who has had considerable literary experience and a knowledge of Irish history.

Amongst books of authority on our subject matter, I must acknowledge indebtedness to Eugene O'Curry's " Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish," Benn's " History of Belfast," and "Old Belfast," by K. M. Young, M.E.I.A. (the latter volume was invaluable as a guide to local history), Dr P. W. Joyce's various works and writings of Dr Hyde and Dr Sigerson, and the " Autobiography of Wolfe Tone," edited by K. Barry O'Brien. Dr W. H. Grattan Flood's " History of Irish Music," was always at hand for reference. From it I have quoted an account of Patrick Lynch, a Clare man and author of a " Gaelic Grammar," whom he takes to be the same as the Lynch who taught Irish in Belfast and toured Con- naught for Bunting. It is only right to state here that this has been questioned. Mr Seumas Casaide, a Dublin Gaelic scholar and Bibliophile, has prepared a short biography of Lynch, the Clare grammarian, and was not aware that he had ever been in Belfast. He assumed that Bunting's Lynch was an entirely different person. On examining and comparing handwriting, his belief was somewhat shaken, as the script of Lynch in the Bunting papers bore a decided resemblance to that of the Clareman. Moreover, Mr Casaide allowed that there were a few years of the life of his Lynch which he could not account for, and which might have been occupied by his residence in Belfast and County Down. On looking through the Irish poetry taken down by Lynch

PREFACE

in Connaught, his opinion again changed and he asserted that the words were spelled to represent the Northern pronunciation of Irish, and that no Clareman that ever was born or schooled, could have spelt like that. So there the mystery remains unsolved, and perhaps I have erred in naming Lynch " The Pentaglot Preceptor." There may have been two men, where I, with Dr Grattan Flood's assistance, have given an account of one. In any case he stands forth in these pages a typical preceptor of the gay old times, when schoolmasters were itinerants like the harpers, ere ever a National Board had arisen to cabin and confine them behind the doors of school-houses.

For information on different points I am indebted to Mr Isaac Ward of Belfast (an inveterate reader of old newspapers, and great authority on all connected with the history of the city), Dr the Rt. Hon. Michael Cox, P.C., Sir William Whitla, Mrs Chambers Bunten, Miss Lucy Broadwood, Sir Charles Brett, and above all to Dr Louis MacRory and Sir Thomas and Lady Deane for prompt response to all questionings.

The time is ripe to recall Bunting's labour and claim for Mm a full meed of fame. The subject of national folk music has been recognised as of much importance by the school boards of England and Wales. In the United States, which I visited recently, a mingling of races, makes possible fi comparative study of the folk-song of many nations, and 1 found interest on the subject keen, and many educational agencies at work in this sphere. In New York that most cosmopolitan of cities, Dr Leipziger, superintendent of the 1 3cturing department of the public schools, is full of interest i i the subject, and it is kept prominently before the public.

Where the world's folk music is studied and compared, that of Ireland is assured of due attention, and the Irish population in the United States will have reason to boast of their heritage.

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PREFACE

In conclusion let me say that the dedication of this volume to Lord Shaftesbury, is in keeping with its aim and purpose, for his Irish kindred come into the story. It was to a Lady Donegall that Moore dedicated his melodies ; and Lord Belfast (Lord Shaftesbury's own grandfather) encouraged and assisted Bunting in his final enterprise, and brought his work before the notice of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort. The next Lord Belfast was intensely musical, had talent as a composer and supported the Belfast Anacreonotic Society, which had good reason to deplore his early death, and honoured his memory by a requiem concert. His nephew to whom this volume is dedicated, sustains these musical traditions, has done much for the Belfast Philharmonic Society, the Irish Folk Society, and occasionally appears as a vocalist on a concert platform. He has, moreover, held the office of Lord Mayor of Belfast, thus strengthening his connection with the city whose musical history is recorded here.

CHARLOTTE MILLIGAN FOX. BELFAST, September 1911.

xu

CONTENTS

CHAP.
PREFACE	.	* .
I. EDWARD	BUNTING — AN	INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR
11.	DO.	DO.
III.	DO.	DO,
IV.	DO.	DO.
V.	DO.	DO.
VI.	DO.	DO.
VII.	DO.	DO.
VIII.	DO.	DO.
IX.	DO.	DO.

PAGE .VII

.. 1

. . 10

. .23

.... . 34

. . 43

.. 51 . . 61

. .68 .. 76

X. THE HARP IN ANCIENT IRELAND . . . . . . 83

XI. THE HARP FESTIVAL OF 1792. CONTEMPORARY DOCUMENTS

AND DESCRIPTIONS *• ^j^ /• • ... 97

XII. THE LAST HARPERS . . ... . . . 109

XIII. DO. . . . .V . .;' . . 123

XIV. MEMOIRS OF ARTHUR O'NEILL — INTRODUCTORY AND FIRST

JOURNEY . . . . .... « . 137

XV. DO. DO. SECOND JOURNEY . . . 152

XVI. DO. DO. THIRD JOURNEY . , . 173

XVII. DO. DO. CONCLUSION . . . . 188

XVIII. FAMOUS HARPS . . . . . . .... 201

xiii

XIV

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

XIX. BUNTING AND THE COUNTRY SINGERS . . 212

XX. DIARY AND LETTERS OF PATRICK LYNCH .... 227

XXI. DO. DO. .... 238

xxn. DO. DO. .... 249

XXIII. SONG WORDS IN THE BUNTING COLLECTION . . . . 259

XXIV. LETTERS FROM DR JAMES MACDONNELL — 1836-1840 . . 273 XXV. LETTERS RE PUBLICATION .-..'.-, 293

XXVI. LAST LETTERS AND APPRECIATION . . . . 302

INDEX . . 311

LIST OF PORTRAITS

EDWARD BUNTING Frontispiece

From a daguerreotype in the possession of Dr Louis MacRory.

TURLOGH O'CAROLAN . . ... . . To face page 54

From an old engraving.

DENIS HEMPSON . . . ... . . „ 110

From an old engraving.

CHARLES BYRNE, AGED 92 . ... . „ 130

Sketched by Miss O'Reilly of Scarva, 16th August 1810.

ARTHUR O'NEILL ..." ,, 140

From an old engraving by T. Smith, Belfast.

Dr JAMES MACDONNELL . . . ' » . ,, 274

From a photograph of a bust now in the Municipal Art Collection, Belfast.

ANNALS OF THE IRISH HARPERS

CHAPTER I

EDWARD BUNTING — AN INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR

THERE is an old Irish street ballad to an air now known as the "Wearing of the Green," which commences with the rythmical announcement :

" Oh, I'll go down unto Belfast to see that seaport gay,"

and with this we may fitly begin our record, for before bringing on the stage of description our dramatis personce, it will be well to realise the scene in which they are to move. This is all the more necessary when the scene is mainly in Belfast of a century ago, for there is no place in Ireland that has changed more than that city which boasts itself the commercial capital of Ireland, and counts its population by hundreds of thousands.

In this Ireland of decaying towns and cities and dwindling population, the growth of Belfast seems indeed a marvel, and, turning back the pages of history, the contrast is heightened, for we find it to have been a place of little importance.

To the head of a deep inlet of the sea, which opens into the North Channel, directly facing the entrance to the Scottish Clyde, the River Lagan flows down from the interior of Ulster. Near that river mouth there was in

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ANNALS OF THE IRISH HARPERS

ancient times a fordable place. This was Beulfearsaide, the ford, important as a passage from one known centre of habitation to another. Carrickfergus, a few miles off on the northern shore of the Lough, got its name in legendary times, and was one of the keys of Ireland held by the early Norman invaders. Bangor, on the southern side, at the gate of the sea, was in the seventh century the site of the most famous of Irish ecclesiastical schools, sending out Christian missionaries to France and Switzerland and Northern Italy. With their Gospel books, they carried also the Irish book of Church Song that remains to this day the treasure of a European library.

The invading Norsemen blotted out the glory of Bangor in fire and blood, and ultimately their kinsmen, the Normans, planted their strong castles on the coast of Down. Beulfearsaide retained its importance as a place of passage for riders between the towers of Carrick and the Ards of Down. Sometimes it was in the keep of the native Irish. Edmund Spenser in his view of Ireland mentions it among northern places which had been anglicised, but had fallen away to be "one of the most out-bound and abandoned places in the English Pale, and, indeed, not counted of the English Pale at all."

The foundation of its present greatness was, however, laid ultimately in the reign of James I., after the passing over-sea of the great Chieftains of the Gael, when Sir Arthur Chichester took in hand the business of the Planta- tion of Ulster. You may see his tomb and read his epitaph in the Church of St Nicholas at Carrickfergus. He may take his place in history, as the founder of that Belfast, which nowadays stands for the continuance of English rule and speaks in the name of that Ulster, which would still fain be considered a plantation. The connection with his family is perpetuated in the names of many of the streets — Donegal Street, Donegal Square, Donegal Place, Chichester

EDWARD BUNTING— INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR

Street, Arthur Street. He had laid firm hand and holding on Donegal after the passing of the brothers of Red Hugh O'Donnell, and the family took title from that territory. Strangely enough certain members of the Donegal family come in at the end of this story of the preserving of the treasures of the Irish bards and harpers, as extending encouragement and help to those engaged in the work. The benign images of a Lady Donegal, who was the best friend of Moore, and of Lord Belfast, who encouraged the last labours of Bunting, are some set off against the grim masterful figure of Chichester, who swept Ulster of her bard-protecting, native chieftains.

Here, then, at Belfast was the chief part of that great plantation, and the inhabitants from the outset displayed certain qualities of thrift and independence that mark them to this day. In Oliver Cromwell's time its Presbytery indeed displayed too much independence for the liking of that man of blood and iron, and by his command his secretary, John Milton, thundered at them in language of sternest invective as having "the appearance of a co-interest, and partaking with the Irish rebels," and being no better than "a generation of Highland thieves and redshanks." In this latter phrase he points at the Scotch origin of so many of the Presbyters, and maybe had in mind Spenser's erudite disquisition on the racial ties of the Albans and Scythians, and his conclusion to the effect that "Scotland and Ireland are all one."

In 1690, on the 14th June, Dutch William, landing at Carrickfergus, was met by General Schomberg and accom- panied by him to Belfast, where he lodged at the Castle, and stayed from Saturday till the following Thursday. He spent his time in receiving addresses and reviewing his army, preparatory to his march south, to his victory of the Boyne.

This was a great event for Belfast, and quite in keeping

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ANNALS OF THE IEISH HARPERS

with the tradition of Chichester's foundation and the spirit of the city we know to-day. In fact, Belfast would seem to have not yet recovered its equilibrium, and the figure of William of Orange still stands out as of supreme import- ance, overshadowing the repute and popularity of living sovereign or popular politician. In every Protestant work- ing-man's dwelling you will see his image in crockery, or on the walls in a showy picture. When the 12th of July comes round hundreds of pictures of King William are lifted to the "breeze on the great banners of the Orange lodges. There you will see him on his white, prancing horse, pointing his sword towards the smoke of James's guns, and to the stirring notes of " The Boyne Water," that great victory is recalled.

One might easily imagine that this has been going on ever since William and Schomberg rode southward along the Dublin road ; but in the intervening eighteenth century there was a time when Belfast would have deserved Spenser's lament concerning its retrogression from the English Pale, and when Milton might again have taunted its people with their kinship to the Highlanders.

Mention of the July procession brings us to this moment of history, and to the dramatic opening of narrative, which is our immediate concern.

It is llth July 1792. There are bands, banners, and marching men. Amid popular enthusiasm a procession winds its course along the High Street, going by one bank of the river, which flows seaward between the houses, and returning by another. There is a review in a field on the Falls Road, a convention, and, finally, a banquet. This is, in short, a muster of the Irish volunteers, who have already made history. The occasion of their assembly is to celebrate the fall of the Bastille, and declare themselves in favour of Catholic Emancipation and the Rights of Man.

Side by side with this political demonstration there was

4

EDWARD BUNTING— INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR

proceeding, what would be called nowadays a feis ceoil or musical festival, a gathering of the Irish harpers, the successors of the ancient bards of the Gaeldom. What a strange contrast is afforded here, between the politicians of the new era, fired with the principles of the French Revolu- tion, and the musicians mostly aged and blind assembled in the Exchange Rooms, who waited for the sound of the drums and the cheering to pass into the distance, ere they wakened the clear sweet music of their harps. Before we come to describe the festival in which they shared, it will be well to say something briefly and then dismiss the political celebration.

On this occasion of action and oratory, a leading part is taken by a keen-faced young man from Dublin, Wolfe Tone, who is proud to wear the uniform of the Belfast Company. He has left in his vivacious diary a vivid account of the proceedings and of the persons concerned. He held office as secretary of the association formed by the Irish Catholics to further their own emancipation. A Protestant himself, he was exerting all his powers to win the Protestants of Belfast to make a strong pronouncement at the convention in favour of the Catholic claims. He was opposed on this occasion by certain important men, chief of whom was Mr Henry Joy, who advocated caution and gradual reform. A great suspicion and curiosity was excited by the fact that he had driven into the town, with a gentleman from the College in Dublin, whom nobody knew. This was no other than his great friend, Whitley Stokes, a Fellow of Trinity College, a cultivated scholar and dis- tinguished scientist. The Belfast moderates feared that he had been brought to exercise undue influence in the conven- tion, and to allay these suspicions Wolfe Tone diverted his attention to the musical festival, and put him in the hands of the man who was the guiding spirit thereof, that is, Dr James MacDonnell. Tone himself took a look in at the old harpers,

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ANNALS OF THE IRISH HARPERS

but writes of their efforts with impatience and only acknow- ledges three of the performers to be good.

It remains an undecided question, whether the political situation or the musical festival had brought Whitley Stokes to Belfast, probably the former was the reason, the latter the excuse, till Tone found that the Belfast men resented the presence of this outsider. Then again he was a United Irish- man, but not in favour of revolution ; and though Tone may have brought him with a view to his assisting in leading the moderates forward, his influence might have tended to hold the extremists back. Anyhow, he was left out of the political councils ; and if he expressed his views at all on the burning questions of the day, it was in the course of argument and conversation at the dinners and festivities to which he was invited. Perhaps it was just this personal influence that Tone had counted on, for he himself had felt it, and in his analysis of the characters of his friends, places Stokes as coming nearest to his own views, save in the matter of revolution.

" He is an enthusiast in his nature," writes Tone, " but what he would highly, that would he holily. In the full force of the phrase I look upon Whitley Stokes as the very best man I have ever known."

Stokes, it may be added, left the United Irish body in this year, when it began to advocate physical force.

Dr James MacDonnell, who must be regarded as the moving spirit in the matter of the harp festival, was without doubt one of the most public spirited men associ- ated with Belfast at any period of its history. Later in this book will be found an appreciation of his services in the sphere of medical practice and of scientific research. In politics he was liberal, and had spoken in favour of Catholic emancipation, avowing that though a Protestant himself, he had many Catholic kindred. He was never, however,

6

EDWAED BUNTING— INTEODUCTOEY MEMOIE

entangled in the United Irish conspiracy, though Wolfe Tone seems to have sought after him, and dubbs him in his diary " The Hypocrite," not signifying that he fell short of his professions, but that he was a better Nationalist than he would allow himself to be considered.

Thomas Eussell, Tone's intimate friend and associate, was for some time resident in Dr MacDonnell's house, and co- operated with him in collecting geological specimens and fossils, making the nucleus of the present Belfast Museum in College Square (where by the way there is a fine marble bust of the doctor).

Amid all this intimacy with the Belfast Eepublicans, MacDonnell remained unattached. It was perhaps to pro- vide himself with a separate sphere of action on the occasion of " The Fall of the Bastille " celebration and convention, that he set about organising the harper's festival along with Henry Joy and Eobert Bradshaw. A present day parallel will be found in the Gaelic festivals held all over Ireland in the summer months, to which persons of every political creed are invited, but which serve to stir the deep well springs of national sentiment.

Dr MacDonnell could boast himself a Northern Gael of most illustrious line. He was born at Glenarrif, in County Antrim, where his father Michael, surnamed Eoe MacDonnell, had some property, remaining from greater estates. Michael was son of Alexander, son of Coll a Voulin (of the Mill), so named because on his land in the Antrim Glens he used water mills, where humbler folk still ground at the quern. Going beyond Coll a Voulin, to his father, Sir Alexander MacDonnell, we step across the Irish Channel to the Scottish Isles, and into an era that makes blood-stained pages in history. In short, the great-grandfather of our gentle Belfast doctor was that tremendous personage, Sir Alastair MacColkitto MacDonnell, who figured in the rising of Montrose in Scotland and in the wars of 0 wen Eoe in Ireland.

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ANNALS OF THE IRISH HARPERS

We dare not tarry to describe his great deeds here, nor to speak of his father before him, the Colkitto, from whom he derived his patronymic and with whom he is often confused. English writers, not understanding the Gaelic system of naming, often alluded to Alastair as Colkitto, or even as Mr Kitto or Colonel Kitto. These confusions are likely what led Milton to demand in his sonnet on Tetrachordon, whether that name was,

" harder Sirs than Gordon Colkitto, or MacDonnell or Galasp, Those rugged names to our mouths grow sleek That would have made Quintillian stare and gasp."

Michael MacDonnell of the Antrim Glens had somewhat declined from the position of his father and grandfather, yet retained all the Gaelic pride of birth, and counted kindred with the Earl of Antrim, his neighbour at Glenarm. To his house in Glenarrif came a blind youth, then going his first itinerary of Ireland as a harper in some year of the seventeen seventies.

This was Arthur O'Neill, clansman of the noble family that had once reigned in Tyrone. Michael MacDonnell gave hospitable welcome to the blind harper, and made him tarry in the glens to teach his three sons the art of playing on this instrument. What he thought of his pupils will be found in the chronicle of his life-story. Much as they loved music, the young men had other tastes, and had not patience to become expert ; but as the years passed by, and when Dr MacDonnell, having graduated at Edinburgh, was settled in Belfast as a doctor and heard the stir of preparation for the Bastille celebrations, his mind went back to the blind harp- player at Gleaarrif. He thought of the Highland festivals he had heard of in Scotland, and of the attempts which had been made to imitate them in the Granard harp gatherings. A fund was started, a circular sent out, subscribers found,

8

EDWARD BUNTING— INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR

and then an advertisement was put in the Belfast Newsletter summoning the harpers of Ireland to assemble and compete.

Arthur O'Neill, who was still on his wanderings, was laid up in the house of one of his friends after a severe wetting. Being disinclined to play by reason of rheumatic fingers, he had the newspaper read to him, and so came to hear the advertisement.

So came it that master and music-pupil met again. Nine other harpers were there, including those he had competed with again and again at the Granard competi- tions ; but on this occasion, more than transient pleasure, or the excitement of a trial of skill was in view. As the harpers played, a young man, just nineteen years of age — blue-eyed with Irish complexion and brown wavy hair — was called forward and requested to transcribe the airs, as accurately as possible, and without any attempt to modernise or modify any peculiarities of the strains. The music was to be studied and recorded from the point of view of the antiquary eager to preserve a heritage of melody that had been handed down from one generation to another for centuries.

Whilst Dr MacDonnell, organiser of the festival, issued these commands, they were faithfully obeyed by the young musician and scribe, who bore the name of Edward Bunting.

CHAPTER II

EDWARD BUNTING — AN INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR — (continued)

EDWARD BUNTING, according to the account given by him- self, first drew breath in the city of Armagh about 1773, his brother Anthony, who is frequently mentioned in this record, having been born in 1765. There was a third brother, John, about whom little is known, and all three grew up to be organists and cultured musicians.

The father was a mining engineer, who came from Shottle in Derbyshire, to assist at the opening of coal mines at Coal Island, Co. Tyrone. Dr Grattan Flood has pointed out that several families of the name of Bunting had been settled in the neighbourhood of Lough Neagh since the seventeenth century around Ballinderry.

He would like to have us believe, that Bunting had on his father's side a connection of some generations with Ireland; but the family records do not bear this out. It is quite likely, however, that Engineer Bunting may have heard of the opening of these Tyrone mines through kinsfolk already planted in Ireland. On the mother's side Bunting traced his descent to a pure Gaelic source, as she was a descendant of one Patrick Gruana O'Quinn, who had fallen in the great Irish rising of 1642. In his notes and writings he refers to haviiig in boyhood heard the country- folk of County Armagh crying over the dead. We may almost certainly assume that he had mixed with his mother's Irish kindred and heard the Caoine in the house of mourning.

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EDWAKD BUNTING—INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR

His taste for the native music he was accustomed to ascribe to his Irish descent, but in Armagh he was most fortunately situated for its cultivation.

The Primatial Cathedral of Ireland has been, from the time of its foundation to our own day, a training place for musicians. Here the three Bunting boys were trained by Barnes, then organist there ; and Anthony, the eldest, qualified to become an organist, and secured a position in Drogheda.

It has been suggested that little Edward must have gone to Belfast in response to an advertisement which appeared in the Belfast Newsletter, llth September 1781, as follows : —

" Wanted an Apprentice from the age of nine to twelve by William Ware Organist of St Anne's Church Belfast. A fee is required. No one need apply who cannot be well recommended and who has not a taste for the Musical profession."

The advertisement may indeed have caught the attention of the friends and guardians of the boy, and they may have got into communication with Mr Ware, but his going to Belfast was deferred till his eleventh year.

Our authority is an article which appeared in the Dublin University Magazine, written by an intimate friend, and whilst his brother and wife were living in Dublin in 1847. The writer says:1

" At a very early age he had the misfortune to lose his father, who left him unprovided for ; and at the age of nine, having already shown a decided predilection for music, he was removed to Drogheda, where his eldest brother Anthony, an estimable gentleman and citizen of Dublin who yet survives him, was then located as a music teacher and organist. Here he remained for two years during which he received musical instruction from his brother and made such progress in his art, that his fame spread to Belfast,

1 Petrie. 11

ANNALS OF THE IRISH HARPERS

whither at the age of eleven, he proceeded at the invitation of Mr Weir (Ware) the organist of the Church there, to take his place at the instrument while that gentleman made a visit to London. It was very soon discovered at Belfast that the boy substitute was a better Organist than his employer and Mr Weir was glad to secure his services as assistant by articles for a limited number of years. While thus engaged he had in addition to his duties as assistant or sub-organist to the Church, to act also as deputy teacher to Mr Weir's pupils on the pianoforte throughout the neighbouring country, and the zeal of the young master to fulfil his duties were often productive of the most ludicrous results, for his young lady pupils who were often many years older than himself were accustomed to take his reproofs with anything but an angelic temper, and we have heard him tell how a Miss Stewart of Welmot in the County of Down, was so astonished at his audacity that she indignantly turned round upon him and well boxed his ears."

To this account it may be added that the organ was a comparative novelty in Belfast, and that in the Parish Church of St Anne's, where Ware was organist, was, as yet, the only one.

From a Newsletter's advertisement we learn Ware's terms of tuition to have been :

"For harpsichord, a guinea entrance, and half-a-guinea the twelve lessons; guitar, half-a-guinea entrance, half-a- guinea the twelve lessons."

It was part of the duty of the music teacher to tune the instrument, and Mr Ware's tuning-key is still preserved in Belfast. Bunting became efficient, not only at tuning, but actually at repairing and constructing pianos. The mechanical skill, inherited from the engineering father, showed itself in the two musical sons, and there is a reference, in one of Bunting's letters to a daughter, to his

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EDWAED BUNTING— INTEODUCTOEY MEMOIE

brother Anthony and himself working at making the instru- ments. In the correspondence with Mr John M'Cracken in 1 802 (see p. 232), it would seem that Bunting dealt in pianos for the firm of Broad wood, as there is a reference to his collect- ing money, and paying them a business visit. Anthony Bunting, both in Drogheda and Dublin, acted as agent for Messrs Broadwood through a long term of years.

The same Dublin University writer states, that on arriving at Belfast, the boy went to live with the family of Mr John M'Cracken, a prosperous merchant and shipowner, resident in Donegal Street, near to the Parish Church. Mr M'Cracken's wife had been a Miss Joy, and we hear of four sons and two daughters, of these John M'Cracken, junior, and Mary are most intimately associated with the life of Bunting. The other brothers were William and Frank and Henry Joy. The second sister was called Margaret. Bunting's note-books give evidence of the fact that they were musical and lovers of folk-song, for we find airs jotted down as "Mr John M'Cracken's tune," "William M'Cracken's tune," and a manuscript psalm tune book bears the inscription, " Mary M'Cracken, her book, Donegal Street, Belfast." In addition to psalm tunes, it contains a copy of the beautiful Irish air, "Cean dubh Dilis." The brothers and Mary were deeply involved in the political plots of the clay ; but it will be seen that Bunting differed from the views of his friends on political matters, though in a time of danger and sorrow he was found to be trustworthy and courageous when others failed who had made louder professions.

We must assume that his general education was in some way attended to whilst he resided with the M'Crackens, for lie showed himself a highly-cultivated man, with critical literary tastes, yet our Dublin University writer tells us that he ran in danger of the usual fate of an over-flattered genius,

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ANNALS OF THE IRISH HARPERS

"After a few years spent in this manner," he writes, " he became a professor on his own account and his abilities as a performer had become developed, his company was courted by the higher class of the Belfast Citizens, as well as by the gentry of its neighbourhood and in short the boy prodigy became an idol among them. But need we say that this was a most perilous position for a young man subject to no control, imperfectly educated, with social spirit and high animal spirits, obtaining with ease sufficient means to supply his wants and without any higher objects of ambition to gratify them than that which he had already compassed. Or should we wonder that courted, caressed, flattered and humoured as he was, he should have paid the usual penalty for such pampering, that his temper should have become pettish and his habits wayward and idle. Such indeed is too commonly the fate of young musicians precociously gifted with extraordinary powers and who falling into premature habits of incurable dissipation, have seldom realised in after life the promise their early talents had given. It was happily not so with Bunting. Wayward and pettish he remained through life, and for a long period at least, occasionally idle and we fear dissipated, for hard drinking was the habit of the Belfastians in those days ; but while still young, not more than nineteen, an event occurred which gave his ardent and excitable temperament a worthy object of ambition on which to employ it and which necessarily required a cultivation of his powers to enable him to effect it. The event we allude to was the assemblage in Belfast in 1792 of the harpers from all parts of Ireland, the aged and feeble Minstrels, who had given pleasure in a state society now rapidly undergoing a radical change."

So far we have quoted from one who enjoyed his intimacy at the end of life, and what he tells us is corroborated by the diary of Wolfe Tone, which throws so much light on the social as well as the political life of Belfast at that era. From his pen we get a glimpse of Bunting in the year previous to the Harp Festival, and though only a youth

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EDWAKD BUNTING— INTKODUCTOKY MEMOIK

of eighteen we meet him at a club with men of the world, and arguing politics at a men's dinner-party. In October 1791 Tone came up to Belfast on a special political mission, and stayed with his friend, Thomas Kussell, meeting all the leading men of the town and neighbourhood. Their political doings do not concern us, but there was much entertaining, and after each night's proceedings Tone notes late hours, much political argument and wine. Here is his description of his Sunday (23rd October, 1791).

"Dinner at A. Stewart's with a parcel of Squires of County Down. Foxhunting, hare hunting, buck hunting and farming. No bugs in the northern potatoes ; not even known by name, etc. A farm at a smart rent always better cultivated than are at a low rent ; Probable enough. Went at nine to the Washington club. Argument between Bunting and Boyd of Ballicastle. Boyd pleasant. (N.B. perhaps Bunting was the opposite). Persuaded myself and P.P. (i.e. Kussell) that we were hungry. Went to the Donegal Arms and supped on lobsters. Drunk. Very ill natured to P.P. Mem. To do so

On 25th October he records a dinner at Mr M'Tier's, and ' a furious battle on the Catholic question which lasted two hours."

" Bruce an intolerant high priest declared . . . that thirty- nine out of forty Protestants would be found, whenever the question came forward to be adverse to the liberation of the lloman Catholics. ... It may be he was right, but God is above all. Sad nonsense about scavengers becoming members of Parliament, and great asperity against the new fangled doctrine of the Eights of Man. Broke up rather ill-displeased towards each other. More and more convinced of the absurdity of arguing over wine."

In this after-dinner debate he notes " almost all the company agreed with Dr Bruce except Kussell, M'Tier,

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ANNALS OF THE IRISH HARPERS

Getty and myself. Against us Bruce, Cunningham, Grey Holmes, Bunting and H. Joy."

It will be noticed that no member of the M'Cracken family with whom the boy Bunting resided was present at this dinner, and strange to say we do not meet the name of any one of the brothers in connection with these festive events. Nor are they mentioned as taking any lead in political discussions, either in private or at the Convention of 1793. Later on, when the day of danger and action arrives, they are found in the front.

Enough has been said to give an idea of the society and the influences by which Bunting was surrounded, when, as Petrie writes, the assembly of the harpers roused his enthusiasm and gave him an uplifting aim in life.

In a circular printed before the issue of his third volume in 1840 he refers to this event and possibly in the opening sentences, to the ambitions awakened by converse between Whitely Stokes and Dr MacDonnell which he was privileged to hear. The letters of the latter towards the end of the book exhibit him as urging Bunting on to tremendous efforts, almost too great for his enfeebled age, and we can gather thence what must have been his attitude of mentor to the talented but somewhat spoiled youth. We now quote from the circular:

"The hope of being enabled, by reviving the National Music, to place himself in the same rank with those worthy Irishmen whose labours have from time to time sustained the reputation of the country for a native literature, had the Editor admits, no inconsiderable share in determining him on making the study and preservation of our Irish melodies the main business of his long life, and he is free to confess, the same hope still animates him in giving these, the last of his labours, to the public. But what at first incited him to this pursuit and what has chiefly kept alive the ardour with which for nearly fifty years, he has prosecuted it, was and is, a strong, innate love for these delightful strains for their

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EDWARD BUNTING— INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR

own sake, a love for them, which neither the experience of the best music of other countries, nor the control of a vitiated public taste, nor the influence of declining years, has ever been able to alter or diminish.

"The occasion which first confirmed the Editor in this partiality for the airs of his native country, was the great meeting of the Harpers of Belfast in the year 1792. Before this time there had been several similar meetings at Granard in the County of Longford, which had excited a surprising degree of interest in Irish music through that part of the country. The meeting in Belfast was however better attended than any that had yet taken place and its effects were more permanent, for it kindled an enthusiasm through- out the North, which still burns bright in some honest hearts. All the best of the old class of harpers — a race of men then nearly extinct and now gone for ever, Denis Hempson, Arthur O'Neill, Charles Fanning and seven others, the least able of whom has not left his like behind, were present. Hempson, who realised the antique picture drawn by Cambrensis and Galelei for he played with long crooked nails and in his performance * the tinkling of the small wires under the deep tones of the bass was peculiarly thrilling, took the attention of the Editor with a degree of interest which he can never forget.

"He was the only one who played the very old the aboriginal music of the country, and this he did in a style of such finished excellence as persuaded the Editor that the praises of the old Irish harp in Cambrensis, Fuller and others, instead of being as the detractors of the country are fond of asserting, ill-considered and indiscriminate, were in reality no more than a just tribute to that admirable instrument and its then professors.

"But more than anything else, the conversation of Arthur O'Neill, who though not so absolute a Harper as Hempson, was more of a man of the world and had travelled in his calling over all parts of Ireland, won and delighted him. All that the genius of later poets and romance writers has feigned of the wandering minstrel was realised in this man. There was no house of note in the North of Ireland as far as Meath on the one hand and Sligo

17 B

ANNALS OF THE IEISH HARPERS

on the other in which he was not well known and eagerly sought after.

" Carolan had been his immediate predecessor, and those who have taken any interest in the life of the elder minstrel will readily recognise the names of Charles O'Conor of Belnagare, Toby Peyton of Lisduff, James Grivin of Streamstown, Mrs Crofton of Longford, Con O'Donnell of Larkfield, Squire Jones of Moneyglass; not to detain the reader with a longer enumeration all of whom are to be found in the list of O'Neill's friends and entertainers. He had also when a youth been through the South where his principal patron was the famous Murtagh 0' Sullivan at Bearhaven, a man who led quite the life of an old Irish chieftain, and whose memory is still vividly preserved in the lays and traditions of the County Cork. O'Neill was of the great Tyrone family and prided himself on his descent, and on supporting to some extent the character of a gentle- man Harper. Although blind from his youth he possessed a singular capacity for the observation of men and manners. He had been the intimate friend of Acland Kane who played before the Pretender, the Pope and the King of Spain. He himself had played on Brian Borou's harp strung for the occasion, through the streets of Limerick, in the year 1760 ; in a word he was a man whose conversation was enough to enamour anyone of Irish music, much more, one so enthusiastic in everything Irish as the Editor."

By reference to Arthur O'Neill's autobiography, it will be seen that Dr MacDonnell entertained all the harpers to a banquet, and detained O'Neill himself for some days as guest. Durid£ this time we may be sure Edward Bunting was still in attendance noting down the airs. In some instances the words of songs may have been taken down, and we find amongst the manuscripts the Irish words of " The Green Woods of Truagh," with this inscription " for Mr W. Stokes." We have, however, no record of an attempt to preserve Gaelic song words at this meeting, though that had been in view, and the Harper O'Neill had attempted to bring with him a native Gaelic speaker, providing the

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EDWAED BUNTING— INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR

man with suitable clothes for the occasion ; but the poor scholar so fancied his improved appearance, that he went of to show himself to his friends and never turned up in Belfast.

The collecting of Gaelic lyrics was anyhow deferred to a later date, and attention concentrated on the harp melodies.

For four years after the harper's festival, Bunting devoted himself to the work of collecting airs, and in the circular already quoted refers to his labours at this period.

" Animated by the countenance and assistance of several townsmen of congenial taste and habits, of whom his excellent friend, Dr James M'Donnell is now, alas, the only survivor, and assisted to a great extent by O'Neill and the other Harpers present on this memorable occasion, the Editor immediately after the termination of the meeting, commenced forming his first collection. For this purpose ho travelled into Deny and Tyrone, visiting Hempson, after his return to Magilligan in the former county, and spending a good part of the summer about Ballinascreen and other mountain districts in the latter, where he obtained a great number of admirable airs from the country people. His principle acquisitions, however, were made in the Province of Connaught, whither he was invited by the celebrated Richard Kirwan of Creggs, the philosopher and founder of the Royal Irish Academy, who was himself an ardent admirer of the native Music, and who was of such influence in that part of the country, as procured the Editor a ready opportunity of obtaining tunes from both high and low. Having succeeded beyond his expectations, he returned to Belfast, and in the year 1796 produced his first Volume, containing sixty-six native Irish Airs never before published."

The Society for promoting useful knowledge assisted the publication by subscribing a sum of money, which was, how- ever, regarded as a loan, and returned.

Thomas Russell, the intimate friend of Tone, a south of Ireland man, who had come to Belfast with his regiment,

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ANNALS OF THE IEISH HAEPEES

had, on retiring from the army, taken the position of first librarian to this society. His intimacy with Dr MacDonnell has been already mentioned, and his work in the connection with starting the library was a labour of love. It was at that time placed in rooms in Anne Street, and here he was accustomed to have Irish lessons from a tutor (also a southern) called Patrick Lynch,1 who had been imported to Belfast to teach Gaelic as a sound basis for literary research. Eussell doubtless considered a knowledge of it as a necessary equipment for a librarian, who might have to collect and care for Gaelic manuscripts.

He had not been present at the Harp Festival, and passed through several changes of fortune in the interval between 1791 and the appearance of Bunting's collection in 1796. To recapitulate these briefly. Through indiscreet generosity to an undeserving friend he had got into debt, and was obliged to part with his commission, obtaining through the influence of the Knox family, a magistracy in Dungannon. This position he resigned fronl conscientious motives, being unable to concur with his brother magistrates in their method of deciding actions between Protestants and Catholics. Eeturning to Belfast, he was the guest of Dr .MacDonnell, who obtained for him, January 1794, the post of librarian with a small salary. It was during this period that he was enabled to show an active interest in Bunting's projected work ; and in 1796 he was writing from a Dublin prison, for in the autumn of that year, the Government, awakening to impending danger, made a swoop on the Belfast centre of conspiracy, suppressed their newspaper, The Northern Star, and took its Editor, Samuel Neilson, into captivity along with Henry and William M'Craoken, Eussell, and many northern men, and among other Dubliners, Mr Thomas Emmet.

Eussell's letters from prison were addressed to a Belfast

1 Later on collector of the words and music in Connaught.

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EDWARD BUNTING— INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR

friend, John Templeton, and contain many anxious enquiries about the library about matters of scientific research, and in 1797 he writes :

"I am told that the Irish Music is finished. I have no doubt that it will have great success and raise the reputa- tion of the collectors of the Institution which brought it forward."

In 1800, writing still from prison in Fort George, Scotland, he writes :

"I enclose a tune for my friend Bunting which I beg you to give him; it is one I do not recollect him to have had."

In 1802, when he was at length liberated and about to seek a refuge in France, he finally wrote :

"Farewell, my dear friend. Give my kindest and warmest regards to Miss Mary M'Cracken and all the good family. Remember me affectionately to Bunting. I have a copy of his music with me, and will do all I can to introduce it to notice. You will best know to whom I \vould be remembered. Assure them of my best regards."

This may have been an indirect message from those who remained of his political friends, or to the lady for whom he had cherished an attachment.

We have passed over a pathetic scene connected with the political events of that time, in which Edward Bunting figured.

In 1795, Wolfe Tone with his family, came as a political fugitive to Belfast in order to embark there for America. Thence he was destined to pass to France, to launch three forces of invasion against England and finally to die in a condemned cell.

Passing through Belfast, he was entertained and cheered l>y former friends who rallied around him. Many delightful

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ANNALS OF THE IRISH HARPERS

excursions were planned, the last of which was on the llth June, to Rani's Island on Lough Neagh. On the return of the picnic party to Belfast there was a final gathering, for it was now the eve of departure. Russell, Neilson, and the M'Crackens were present, and Bunting, whose collection was now well on the way to completion, was asked to play.

He chose an appropriate air known as " The Parting of Friends." It is recorded that the wife of Tone, though unused to the melting mood, was overcome with the pathos of the music, and, bursting into tears, left the room.

Had they had power to see into the future, the music chosen was singularly appropriate, for tragedy loomed darkly over the future; for two there, the scaffold waited, for a third, death in a condemned cell.

What was the air played by Bunting is questionable. That published with the title of "The Parting of Friends," though sweet and pathetic, lacks the poignant grief of another with the same name, which lies buried in one of the musical note-books. It is also given the title of " An Cuman," or " The Bond," and there are Irish words for it ; 1 but among the manuscript poems there is only one quatrain bearing the title of " The Parting of Friends or the Scatter- ing of the Company." It would peculiarly apply to the case of Tone, who had been courted in Belfast, then taken note of as a conspirator, and, finally, was separating from these conspirators with danger and death in prospect. The air has all the character of a Gaelic lamentation, and here is literal English for the Gaelic words.

" I have been for some time in this town, I have been greatly caressed, That did not last long till notice was taken of me, No two things on earth I account to be more grievous Than the death of friends and the separating of companions."

1 Published by Bailey Ferguson of Glasgow in Songs of the Irish Harpers, arranged by C. Milligan Fox.

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CHAPTER III

EDWARD BUNTING — AN INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR — (continued)

IN order to estimate the importance of Bunting's first collection, we must recollect that nothing approaching such a work had previously existed. In his own circular, summing up his life work and soliciting support for his last publication, he dwells on this.

" Before this time there had been but three attempts of this nature. One by Burke Thumoth in 1720, another by Neill of Christ Churchyard soon after, and a third by Carolan's son, patronised by Dean Delaney about 1747. In all these the arrangement was calculated rather for the flute or violin than for a keyed instrument, so that the tunes were to a great extent deprived of their peculiar character, and as they were deficient in arrangement, so were they meagre in extent. On the whole, the Editor may safely say that his publication, above alluded to, was the first and only collection of genuine Irish harp music given to the world up to the year 1796."

The book stands, therefore, as the earliest standard authority on this department of study.

View it with regard to its after effect in popularising and saving Irish music, it must be classed as an epoch- making book. Not that its circulation was very extensive, for indeed it brought little profit to the young man who gave it to the world.

A Dublin pirate-publisher speedily brought out a cheap

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ANNALS OF THE IRISH HARPERS

edition, underselling Bunting's half - guinea volume, thus depriving him of a great part of his possible sale ; but the object of the compiler and of his enthusiastic supporters in Belfast was accomplished indirectly through the medium of others, who followed in Bunting's track and gleaned the reward of his labours. In short, he gave the material and inspiration to Moore for his Irish melodies, which are known and sung in every country of the civilised world.

Moore's first volume of melodies did not appear foi eleven years after Bunting's collection, but we have evidence from himself that the book had fallen into his hands very shortly after its publication. One quotation will illustrate this, and the anecdote embodied in it has interest from the fact that it relates to the young Irish patriot, whose tragic fate is alluded to in the exquisitely pathetic songs, "Oh, breathe not his Name," and "She is far from the Land."

Thomas Moore was a student at Trinity College, Dublin, at a time when Ireland was seething with the spirit of insurrection. Even inside the sedate walls of the college conspirators were meeting and whispering. "What the authorities considered a dangerous spirit was evident in the speeches at the debating societies. Finally, there was a visitation and investigation into this matter resulting in the expulsion of certain students. Moore, who was called before the visiting inquisitors, behaved with great firmness and courage, and refused to answer questions calculated to injure his friends.

Chief of these was Robert Emmet, the younger brother of Dr Thomas Emmet, one of the leading men of the United Irish party, who was confined in prison along with Thomas Russell. Concerning his memories of his student days Moore has written:

" Edward Hudson, an amateur flute-player and a United Irishman, first made known to me Bunting's First Volume,

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EDWARD BUNTING—INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR

which I brought to my home in Angier Street." Also, " Robert Emmet, during those college days, used frequently to sit by me at the pianoforte while I played over the airs from Bunting's Irish Collection, and I remember one day, when we were thus employed, his starting up as if from a reverie while I played 'The Fox's Sleep/ exclaiming passionately, 'Oh, that I were at the head of twenty thousand men marching to that air.'"

The air so much admired by Emmet is that to which Moore afterwards composed his song, " Let Erin Remember fche Days of Old." We may here incidentally remark that the northern insurgents, marching in the summer of 1798 from the neighbourhood of Belfast to their defeat at Antrim, tried to cheer their spirits with music ; and, though led by Henry Joy M'Cracken, a member of the family with whom Bunting had his home, they did not sing an old Irish air, but in imitation of the French revolutionists tried to chant " The Marseillaise " (whether in French or English we are not told). However, the song lagged to the slowness of a psalm tune, and dwindled away. Then Jamie Hope, a weaver, who was M'Cracken's chief lieutenant, started what he calls a brisk Irish air, now known as "The Lass of Richmond Hill."

Musical matters had evidently been somewhat neglected amongst the active conspirators, though the Belfast United Irishmen, stimulated by the harp festival of 1792, had adopted as their badge an Irish harp with this motto : " It is new strung and shall be heard." In this connection, it is also interesting to recollect that Wolfe Tone, when in France, whiled away the time, when an army of invasion was being got ready, by jotting down Irish airs for the band of his regiment to play, in case he ever got so far as to have a regiment with a band.

To return to the subject of Moore, we have many references in his diary and letters to his dependence on

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ANNALS OF THE IRISH HARPERS

Bunting. He sometimes notes that he has spent a morning trying over tunes ; and after a visit to Ireland writes back to Dublin in urgent haste for his volume of the ancient music which he had inadvertently left behind.

Petrie, in the Dublin University Magazine article already quoted, gives a very fair appreciation of the book, estimating its influence on other composers.

" Of the excellence of the melodies in this first collection of Bunting's, it is hardly possible to speak in terms too high, there is hardly an air in it undistinguished for beauty and character ; and as a whole it is confessedly superior in this particular to either of the more splendid volumes which he afterwards produced. It has now been long out of print, and, too, generally forgotten; but the majority of its airs have been made familiar to the world by the genius of Moore, to whom it served as a treasury of melody, as may be gathered from the fact that of the sixteen beautiful airs in the first number of the Irish melodies, no less than eleven were derived from this source. And yet he did not exhaust its wealth. Lover, who came to it for gems of melody after him, found there the exquisite air, ' Mary, do you fancy me ? ' which he worthily made known as ' The Angel's Whisper/ and the air, ' I'll follow you over the Mountains.' And there still remain in this store-house of song unnoticed airs of a vocal character of equal beauty to any that either Moore or Lover has extracted from it — too intensely Irish, perhaps, in their structure for fashion- able ears and taste, but not the less touching to Irish feelings, and for which only a poet of the highest powers and musical sensibility could furnish appropriate words. Such, for example, is the very first air in the collection, ' If to a Foreign Clime I go,' which Bunting placed in that prominent position from his intense admiration of it, and which we know he considered as the most ancient and characteristically Irish tune in this collection."

It is very true that the material for Irish musical com- position was not exhausted by even such lavish borrowers

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EDWAED BUNTING— INTEODUCTOEY MEMOIE

as Moore and Lover. The published volumes contain many airs which are rarely heard. Moreover, on searching through the manuscripts placed in her keeping by Bunting's descend- ants, the present writer has found many airs of a very dis- tinctive character which have never yet been published. Some of these have appeared in the journal of the Irish Folk-Song Society, as facsimiles from Bunting's note-book, and have since then been arranged as songs and published under the title of Songs of the Irish Harpers.

When we consider the immense circulation attained by Moore's melodies, in spite of their association with Sir John Stevenson's settings, we cannot help regretting that Bunting and Moore had not met and arranged to collaborate. Petrie is our authority for a supposition that Moore had made advances to this end, but had been repelled.

" We have often heard it asserted, we will not, however, vouch for the truth of the statement, as we never heard it corroborated by Bunting himself, that some time after the publication of his first collection, Mr Moore offered to supply him with words for the finer vocal airs in his possession, and that Bunting declined or neglected to avail himself of such assistance. But be that as it may, it is certain that he deeply regretted when it was too late, that he had not secured the aid of the great lyrist, though it may be doubted that two instruments so differ- ing in character would have run together long in smooth harmony."

A spirit of reverence for old tradition, a desire to pre- serve religiously the ancient music of Ireland as he received it from the harpers, restrained and guided Bunting, who worked as an antiquary as well as a musician. Moore would have been impatient of such restraints, and never scrupled to make the melody mould and mollify itself at his pleasure. We need scarcely regret that the collabora- tion never took place, as it would have been impossible

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ANNALS OF THE IKISH HARPEES

without compromise on one side or the other. It is, how- ever, pleasing to note that towards the ends of their lives the poet and musician paid homage to one another, and that the bitterness due to comparative failure, the result of Moore's rivalry, did not blind Bunting to the merits of the lyrics, and he praised them in a way which gratified Moore's heart.

We quote from Moore's diary an expression of his feeling on reading Bunting's praise. It contains a candid avowal of the use he had made of the ancient music, and, in addition, a most interesting account of the share he had in connection with the settings.

'''July 15th, 1840. — Received from Cramers & Co. a copy of Bunting's newly-published collection of Irish Airs, which they have often written to me about, as likely, they thought, to furnish materials for a continuation of the Melodies. Tried them over with some anxiety, as, had they contained a sufficient number of beautiful airs to make another volume, I should have felt myself bound to do the best I could with them, though still tremblingly apprehen- sive lest a failure should be the result.

"Was rather relieved I confess on finding with the exception of a few airs, which I have already made use of, the whole volume is a mere mess of trash.

" Considering the thorn I have been in poor Bunting's side by supplanting him in the one great object of his life (the connection of his name with the fame of Irish Music) the temper in which he now speaks of my success (for some years since he was rather termagant on the subject) is not a little creditable to his good nature and good sense. Speak- ing of the use I made of the first volume of airs published by him he says : ' They were soon adapted as vehicles for the most beautiful popular songs that perhaps have ever been composed by any lyric poet.' He complains strongly, however, of the alterations made in the original airs, and laments that 'the work of the Poet was accounted of so paramount an interest that the proper order of song writing

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EDWAED BUNTING— INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR

was in many instances inverted, and instead of the words being adapted to the tunes, the tune was too often adapted to the words : a solecism which could never have happened had the reputation of the writer not been so great as at once to carry the tunes he designed to make use of, altogether out of their old sphere among the simple tradition-loving people of the Country with whom in truth many of the new melodies to this day are hardly suspected to be themselves.'

" He lays the blame" (Moore continues) " of all these altera- tions upon Stevenson, but poor Sir John was entirely innocent of them ; as the whole task of selecting the airs and in some instances shaping them thus, in particular passages, to the general sentiment, which the melody appeared to me to express was undertaken solely by myself. Had I not ventured on these very admissible liberties many of the songs now most known and popular would have been still sleeping with all their authentic dross about them in Mr Bunting's first Volume.

"The same charge is brought by him respecting those airs, which I took from the Second Volume of his collection. ' The beauty of Mr Moore's words,' he says, * in a great degree atones for the violence done by the musical arranger to many of the airs, which he has adopted.'"

These entries in Moore's journal are of profound interest, not only as a plain avowal of indebtedness to Bunting, but as casting a light on the fact, that he was himself accustomed to give a hand in the matter of musical composition. How- ever, we cannot believe for a minute that the Stevenson arrangements so elaborated and florid can have any resemblance to the accompaniments, which Moore played or improvised when he melted hearts and drew tears from the eyes of his hearers in the most fashionable circles of London Society.

This is borne out by a description left us by Willis, who, in 1834, heard him sing at an after-dinner reception at Lady Blessington's.

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" My letter is getting long and I have no time to describe his singing. It is well-known, however, that its effect is only equalled by the beauty of his own words and for one, I could have taken him into my heart with delight. He makes no attempt at music. It is a kind of admirable recitative in which every shade of thought is syllabled and dwelt upon, and the sentiment of the song goes through your blood, warming you to the very eyelids and starting your tears if you have a soul or sense in you. I have heard of a woman's fainting at a song of Moore's, and if the burden answered by chance, to a secret in the bosom of the listener, I should think from its effect on so old a stager as myself, that the heart would break with it. We all sat round the piano and after one or two songs of Lady Blessington's choice, he rambled over the keys awhile and sang, 'When first I met thee' with a pathos that beggars description. When the last word had faltered out, he rose, took Lady Blessington's hand, said 'Good-night,' and was gone before a word was uttered. For a full minute after he had closed the door no one spoke. I could have wished myself to have dropped silently asleep where I sat, with the tears in my eyes and the softness upon my heart."

From this description, borne out by others that have come down to us, we feel sure that Moore never marred the beauty of the airs by the ornate quasi-Italian preludes and movements of Stevenson, but that he improvised as he went along, a chord here, a chord there, to emphasise a word and assist interpretation, leaving the clear stream of melody to flow on undisturbed.

In his journal of December 1826, we find an account of Moore's collaboration with so famous a composer as Bishop.

" Bishop, having failed at giving my idea of the song for the War-dance, I played him a few bars when in town as my notion of the sort of subject it ought to be. He took down from the notes I played and when his new setting came, I found he had exactly preserved them. The rest of the composition not being at all what I liked I again suggested

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EDWARD BUNTING— INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR

a totally different harmony as well as melody, and he very good humouredly adapted it almost note for note ; so that the composition now, though under his name, is nearly as much mine as anything I ever wrote."

In the same manner, without doubt, the poet handled and altered the measure and melodies, of the old airs in Bunting, improving them according to his own opinion, in any case, getting rid of their archaic characteristics, which had been so faithfully preserved, and thus smoothing the way for their world-wide popularity.

Bunting was of opinion that the harpers had accurately transmitted the melodies from one generation to another, but that in the mouths of singers, unacquainted with the county tradition, they had greatly altered. The achieve- ments of Moore must have tended to confirm him in this view, and, indeed, with our Jown experience of folk-song collecting to judge from, we have to conclude that if Moore erred in this matter he was not the first. A great many songs are to be found which are simply variants of some one melody modified by alterations in the measure and style, according to the fancy of the poet who set words to them.

It is pleasing, however, to find, that Bunting, who was generally credited with having an embittered temper, should have made the graceful acknowledgment of Moore's genius which the poet thus quoted side by side with the condemna- tion for altering the airs. Moore, in spite of the adulation which had been heaped on him since boyhood, was eager for universal appreciation and was evidently exceedingly gratified by Bunting's pronouncement that he had written " the most beautiful popular songs that had ever been composed by any lyric poet." He responded with an outspoken acknowledgment of his indebtedness to Bunting's patient research, which appeared in his preface to the fourth

31

ANNALS OF THE IRISH HAEPERS

volume of his collected works published in 1841 as follows : —

"There can be no doubt that to the zeal and industry of Mr Bunting, his country is indebted for the preservation of her own National Airs. During the prevalence of the penal code the music of Ireland was made to share in the fate of its people. Both were alike shut out from the pale of civilized life; and seldom anywhere but in the huts of a proscribed race could the sweet voice of the songs of other days be heard."

It may here be noted by reference to the " Life of the Blind Harper, Arthur O'Neill," that this description of the minstrels sheltering in huts is inaccurate. The harp was, as O'Neill himself calls it, a passport, which won entrance not only to the homes of the remaining old families of Irish race, but many of the newly-planted lords of land became enthusiastic patrons of music, and we find amongst O'Neill's entertainers Boyd of Ballycastle, and the ancester of Colonel Saunderson of Orange fame, whilst harp-loving Protestant parsons are mentioned as well as Catholic priests — but to come back to Moore, he writes after describing the Belfast Harp Festival :

"It was in the year 1796 that this gentleman published his first volume; and the national spirit and hope then wakened in Ireland could not but insure a most cordial reception for such a work, flattering as it was to the fond dreams of Erin's early days, and containing in itself indeed remarkable testimony to the truth of her claims to an early date of civilisation. It was in the year 1797, that, through the medium of Mr Bunting's book, I was first made acquainted with the beauties of our native music. A young friend of our family, Edward Hudson,1 the nephew of an eminent dentist of that name, who played with much taste and feeling on the flute, and, unluckily for himself, was but

1 See rol. x. Irish Folk-Song Society's Journal for essay on the Hudson family.

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EDWAED BUNTING— INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR

too deeply warmed with the patriotic ardour then kindling around him, was the first who made known to me this rich raine of our country's melodies — a mine, from the working cf which my humble labours as a poet, have since then derived their sole lustre and value."

In poetic phrase, addressing the harp of his country, he had before this written in one of his best known songs :

" If the pulse of the patriot, soldier, or lover

Has throbbed to our lay — 'tis thy glory alone ; I was but the wind passing heedlessly over

And all the wild sweetness I waked was thine own."

Moore's acknowledgment to Bunting came only two years before the death of the latter, but it must have given him content at the end of his days to think, that the work of this rival, whose success had overshadowed all his efforts was declared by its author to owe its inspiration to the harp music, which he had rescued from oblivion.

33

CHAPTER IV

EDWARD BUNTING — AN INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR — (continued)

THE period between the publication of Bunting's first and second volumes was occupied in Ireland by stormy happen- ings. In 1798 and in 1803 occurred unsuccessful revolu- tions, in which his intimate friends were implicated. In the earlier rising the efforts of the northern insurgents were con- siderably hampered by the arrest of the leaders they had chosen, and by the failure of others to fill the gap of danger. In this crisis it was Henry Joy M'Cracken who took the lead in Belfast, and brought a little army to attack the town of Antrim. His attempt ended in defeat and arrest. He was brought to Carrickfergus prison, thence to Belfast, where he was tried and executed. It is not in our domain to refer to these tragic events, except in as far as they form the background of the life of the musician, who lived and worked on, in the midst of conspiracy and tumult. In the early years of the nineteenth century we find Miss Mary M'Cracken actively and ardently interested in his work, and she remained a constant friend and adviser till the end of his life. She was then a young woman about his own age, of very remarkable character. No more striking and noble personality has appeared in the annals of Ireland's later history. Her virtues and talents are to be counted as all the more remark- able in that she entered no sphere of life where they would have competed for public recognition. She is not known as an author, yet is deserving of the lame due to a historian. When Dr Madden came to write the " History oi the United

34

EDWARD BUNTING— INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR

Irishmen," he found that her faithful heart had treasured the memories of all that had happened. The story of the north in those "dark and evil days" was related to him mainly by Miss M'Cracken, who knew all who had fought and suffered, and who had been as a protecting angel to the widows and orphans of those who had fallen.

When her brother was tried for his life, and no defence seamed possible, overcoming her natural timidity and repressing her emotions, she rose in the Court, to the astonishment of all, and pleaded his cause, not as a woman crying for mercy, but in the calmly-reasoned speech of a lawyer, pointing out all possible weak places in the case for the prosecution. When sentence was pronounced, she walked leaning on his arm to the foot of the scaffold, to comfort him and sustain his courage, and only at his earnest plea did she consent to leave before the last dread offices of execution were performed. Even at that late moment she had attempted to save him, and it is generally believed that sho had bribed the executioner. She had used powerful influence to have the body delivered up to the family at the earliest possible moment, and on receiving it they sent for Dr MacDonnell to attempt every known method of resuscita- tion. He sent in his stead his brother Alexander, a qualified surgeon, but all his efforts failed. In a brief time a small funeral cortege bore the body towards St George's Church- yard in High Street. No other of the relatives had sufficiently recovered from grief to accompany it, and indeed the brothers were threatened with arrest. Mary walked along sustained by a kindly neighbour, till her brother John, seeing that she was determined to be present at the burial, hastened after the little procession and drew her arm through his. Her indomitable courage sustained her till the sods rattled down on the coffin, then she gave way to natural grief.

Recently her brother's remains have been reverently

35

ANNALS OF THE IRISH HARPERS

removed from that resting-place, and laid in her own grave in Old Clifton Cemetery,1 so that after a hundred years we can at length say, " In death they are not divided."

In the dark years that followed, the strains of the old Irish songs, softly played by Edward Bunting in the stricken home in Donegal Street, must have often touched and soothed her sorrowing heart.

In 1802 we find Dr MacDonnell and M'Cracken's family eagerly at work in an effort towards saving, not only the music, but the ancient language of the Gael. Bunting's first volume had consisted simply of harp melodies ; now a more ambitious scheme presented itself. Every air should find its match in a Gaelic song. These would be examples of the efforts of the Belfast writers to put the songs into English verse. These efforts were on the whole not very satisfactory to Bunting, who has dashed down a terse criticism on each, such as a teacher might write on his scholars' exercises. — "Good," "Bad," "Middling," "Take this," and finally in sarcastic vein, " Take this if there's nothing worse."

A schoolmistress, Miss Balfour, was the most diligent and on the whole the most successful of these writers, though Bunting shows impatience at her over-refinement of the naive peasant songs. We shall come back presently to the matter of these English song words, and must first speak of the Irish originals and the manner of their collection and the possible reason for the fact that they were never published. It has already been mentioned that Thomas Russell, who was by this time liberated from prison, but exiled and resident in France, had been at one time librarian of the Belfast Library, and had studied Irish with one Patrick Lynch, a native-speaking Gaelic scholar.

Early in the summer of 1802 the said Patrick Lynch was

1 This re-interment was effected through the exertions of Mr F. J. Biggar, M.R.I. A., and a simple slab with Irish and English inscriptions marks the spot.

36

EDWAKD BUNTING— INTKODUCTOKY MEMOIK

despatched on a song collecting mission to Connaught. He departed in May travelling via Drogheda, where he saw Bunting's brother Anthony, and then went on through the middle of Meath and Cavan to Sligo and Connemara. Edward Bunting had gone off on a business trip to London, and Lynch k»3pt in correspondence with John and Mary M'Cracken, suffering, however, many adversities till Bunting joined him at Westport in the middle of July.

The Gaelic song collection was the fruit of this journey. The full account of Lynch's experiences will be found in this volume on a later page and makes interesting reading as recorded in his diary and in the letters he wrote appealing for funds to his friends in Belfast.

For some of the songs that he brought back with him, Bunting had already collected the airs in his visit to Kir wan in 1794, but he had never taken down the words, and Lynch brought the words of these and of many others. Here we may select one for quotation, which must have appealed with poignant force to the heart of sorrowful Mary. It is called " Donachu Ban," and the speaker is a sister who has seen her brother die on the gallows. In the first verse she laments the walks at night, the conspiracy and the informer's envy which had wrought his ruin. Then she grieves that she had not him in her care, as a young child borne in her arms, and thiit she would not have carried him to the place of danger. The song proceeds : —

" I gave a leap to the banks of the Lough And the second leap to the middle of the bridge, The third leap to the foot of the gallows Where I found my brother stretched.

0 Mother ! Mother rise up on your feet Your darling son is coming home Not from his wedding, nor from the feast But in his coffin of deal firmly bound.'

* * * * * *

37

ANNALS OF THE IEISH HAEPEES

But the tragic drama of the United Irish insurrection was not yet completed. Wolfe Tone had died in prison, after bringing a French invading force to Ireland's shores. Others, notably his friend Eussell, were known to be in Paris, and the menacing star of Napoleon Bonaparte's fortune was in the ascendant.

The ballad singers were voicing the hopes of the people in songs like that which told

" Boney's on the shore I can hear his cannon roar."

According to the popular tradition in Belfast, Mary M'Cracken is supposed to have been engaged to Eussell, and the romance of her love and sorrow is told as a parallel to that of Emmet and Sarah Curran.

We shall see presently that tradition has erred, for Eussell cherished another attachment. He was, however, her friend, and had sent when leaving prison a message of affectionate regard to her and to Edward Bunting. Her admiration for him was intense, and she seems to have regarded him with distant awe according to the following description supplied by her to the historian, Dr Madden :

"A model of manly beauty, he was one of those favoured individuals, whom one cannot pass in the street, without being guilty of the rudeness of staring in the face, while passing and turning round to look at the receding figure. Though more than six feet high, his majestic stature was scarcely observable owing to the exquisite symmetry of his form. Martial in his gait and demeanour, his appear- ance was not altogether that of a soldier. His dark and steady eye, compressed lip and somewhat haughty bearing were strongly indicative of the camp, but in general the classic contour of his finely-formed head, the expression of almost infantine sweetness which characterised his smile, and the benevolence that beamed in his fine countenance seemed to mark him out as one, who was destined to be the orna- ment, grace and blessing of private life. His voice was

38

EDWAKD BUNTING— INTKODUCTOKY MEMOIK

deep-toned and melodious, and though his conversational powers were not of the first order, yet when roused to enthusiasm, he was sometimes more than eloquent. His manners were those of the finished gentleman combined with native grace, which nothing but superiority of intellect can give. There was a reserved and somewhat haughty stateliness in his mien, which to those who did not know him had at first the appearance of pride ; but as it gave way before the warmth and benevolence of his disposition it soon became evident that the defect, if it were one, was caused by too sensitive delicacy of a noble soul ; and those who knew him loved him the more for his reserve, and thought they saw something attractive in the very repulsive- ness of his manner."

A person of such marked distinction would be at any lime observed in a crowd, and Russell must have had con- siderable difficulty in disguising himself when he returned to Ireland in 1803. However, he seems to have been able to do so, and we find him in the middle of July, " on the day of the Maze races," appearing in the heart of County Down in a district where he was exceedingly well known. One of the first persons to meet him was the " Pentaglot Preceptor," as from the title of one of his own books, we may call the learned Patrick Lynch, Bunting's emissary to Connaught. Considerably startled, he was yet inquisitive enough to hang around Kussell for some days overhearing mu^h of his conversation and plans. He had hoped to rouse insurrection in the north, and to march to the assistance of his Mend Eobert Emmet, who would be, he expected, by that time in possession of Dublin. All these hopes were doomed to failure. No force of any account could be persuaded GO rally to Eussell's aid, and in a few day's time he was a fugitive with a price upon his head, having learned of the premature outbreak of riot and disorder in which Emmet's elaborate plans had ended.

It is now that we can dwell on the contrast between

39

ANNALS OF THE IRISH HARPERS

the story of Sarah Curran and Emmet and that of Mary M'Cracken's devotion to her friend. It is now, too, that the fidelity of Edward Bunting was tested. He had never been involved in the United Irish conspiracy, still cherished moderate and loyal political ideas, yet he was the first man from Belfast to go out to meet the outlaw in his place of refuge among the hills, and to offer active assistance.

But Mary M'Cracken had gone earlier, taking her sister with her, to the house of a Covenanter, James Witherspoon, of Knock bracken, beyond the Castlereagh Hills. It was she who brought home the message that Russell desired to see Bunting, and James Hope adds in his narrative of these events that he desired to enquire of Bunting about the lady to whom he was attached. This was a Miss Simms, a reigning belle in Belfast Society. She does not seem to have reciprocated Russell's affection, or to have sent any message or offer of help to him in this time of trouble. Probably she had been pleased to make a conquest of him when he was the object of general admiration.

Russell soon removed to a place called Ballysallagh, not far from Bangor, and was in constant communication with Miss M'Cracken till a means of escape was planned. At last she sent money to provide for his journey, and at Craigavad he embarked in a Bangor sailing boat in care of two men called Campbell. They conveyed him safely to Drogheda, where he lay concealed in the house of a Protestant gentleman. We cannot help thinking that Bunting must have had a hand in arranging for this refuge in Drogheda, where he frequently visited his brother Anthony. From Drogheda Russell removed to Dublin, and after remaining for some time in hiding was arrested, and lodged in Kilmainham on 9th September.

Miss M'Cracken, at the earnest entreaty of her mother and relatives, yielded so far as not to attend the trial of her friend, but she collected money to pay for the defence, and

40

EDWAED BUNTING— INTEODUCTOEY MEMOIE

engaged her uncle, Henry Joy, to act as counsel. In a letter of farewell, written two days before Ms trial, Kussell thanked her for all her efforts on his behalf, but his oharacteristic reserve and punctilious courtesy is shown in that throughout, he refers to the kindness of "you and your sister."

The trial took place on the 20th of October, and resulted in the conviction of Kussell, who, after an affecting but dignified speech from the dock, was sentenced and duly executed.

Two persons, whose handscript is abundantly in evidence in our Bunting papers, were present at the Eussell trial in different capacities.

The unfortunate Patrick Lynch, who, it will be re- membered, had hovered around Eussell when he was trying to stimulate insurrection in July, had been arrested in Belfast not long before the trial, kept in prison on the charge of high treason, and only released on promising to appear as a Crown witness against Eussell.

He duly appeared, and said in evidence that he knew the accused having given him lessons in Irish in the library in Belfast, and detailed some of the conversation that had taken place relative to the projected insurrection. We refrain from dwelling on this painful scene, as the un- fortunate Lynch, who had not the stuff of a hero in him, seemed to realise the meanness of his position. At the end of his evidence he faltered out a few words that might be taken as an appeal to the prisoner for forgiveness. " I had a regard for the man; he was my friend."

In the body of the court, meantime, sat an attentive listener, who busily tried to commit to paper every word that fell from the prisoner's lips. Debarred from being present at the trial, Mary M'Cracken had entrusted to one Hughes, a lawyer's clerk, the task of preserving for futurity Russell's speech before sentence.

41

ANNALS OF THE IRISH HARPERS

This was, we believe, no other than the Tom Hughes, who acted as scribe to blind Arthur O'Neill, the harper, when dictating his autobiography. The speech which he preserved for the perusal of Russell's friends does much to illumine his memory, for in it was no bombastic justifica- tion of his conduct, but a solemn appeal to men of wealth and station to pay heed to the condition of the poor.

After the execution and burial Hughes returned, still by the faithful Mary's order, to place a stone in Downpatrick Cathedral Yard with this inscription :

"THE GRAVE OF RUSSELL."

42

CHAPTER V

EDWARD BUNTING — AN INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR — (continued)

WE would not have dealt at such lengths with the circum- stances surrounding the tragedy of Thomas Russell's death, but that the fortunes of Bunting's projected second collec- tion were thereby affected.

We can well believe that Lynch, the unfortunate "Pentaglot Preceptor" was no longer employed by the M'Crackens and their ally. He, in fact, withdrew to another sphere of labour in Dublin, and is lost to our view. With his departure difficulties likely arose about his Gaelic manuscripts, although they remained in Bunting's possession, and had been all fairly copied.

But the loss of Lynch was not the only misfortune ; an estrangement arose between the M'Cracken family and Dr MacDonnell.

In the period succeeding Russell's first arrest and imprisonment, MacDonnell had shown himself a steadfast friend, as may be concluded from the letters written to John Templeton, of Belfast, from Russell in Kilmainham. In them the prisoner asks his financial necessities to be made known to the doctor, or to have his state of health explained and advice given. There are constant references to the Library and museum collection, and other subjects of common interest.

Dr MacDonnell, however, had never identified himself with the insurgent cause, and, we suppose, whilst he stood

43

ANNALS OF THE IEISH HAEPERS

to his friends as long as he could, he considered himself under no moral obligation to suffer or make sacrifices.

When Russell was a fugitive in the north, the authorities became suspicious that Dr MacDonnell had extended aid to him. A visit was paid to him, and he was invited and urged to sign a document denouncing the attempted insur- rection, and offering a reward for the apprehension of Russell. He urged that he did not believe that Russell was in Ireland, had no news or knowledge to that effect, and that he saw no need to sign the proclamation. A sister-in-law, who was in the room, added her entreaties with the specious plea, that if he was so confident that Russell was not in Ireland, he should have no hesitation in signing the paper, especially as he was decidedly opposed to the revolutionary designs.

He was thus persuaded to sign, but writing to Dr Madden said :

" I had not done it an hour until I wished of all things it was undone. I need not dwell upon what passed soon after, when Patrick Lynch was apprehended and fixed upon to identify Russell, in which transaction Lynch was entirely blameless in my opinion.

"Three friends of mine, John Templeton, his sister and Miss Mary M'Cracken refused soon after to speak well of me, and a subscription I had been in the habit of paying to Miss Russell was returned to me. These things vexed me more than I can express, but without any explanation upon my part, all these persons returned to my friendship."

In 1807, the first volume of Moore's melodies appeared, and, as already explained, his free and easy method of borrowing from Bunting's collection provoked intense resentment.

The advantage of popularising the airs by turning them into drawing-room songs was seen, and Bunting determined to try and rival Moore. It was now that the Muse was

44

EDWAED BUNTING— INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR

invoked by that obliging preceptress, Miss Balfour, and she sat down to modify the Gaelic songs of love and war and drinking into something more delicate.

We open the manuscript book of English translations at random, and come on a rendering of a little Gaelic lyric that has become famous in the rendering by Douglas Hyde, which

opens :

" Oil were you on the mountain And saw you my love ? "

Here is how Miss Balfour deals with it :

" Saw you the rock that the hazel embowers ? Saw you my love as she trimmed the wild flowers ? Or saw you the lustre of Beauty the rarest ? Or saw you the female in Erin the fairest ? "

and here is the style in which a Mr M'Neill l treats " The Coolin":

" Have you seen the proud maid with the loose flowing hair As she tripped through the woods with a negligent air, Have you seen my cold love with her feet gemmed with dew ? Still dear to my heart though to love never true."

There are, of course, better verses than this, but Wordsworth had not yet convinced the writing world of the artificiality of accepted styles of poetic diction, and the Belfast writers were skilled in the accustomed conventions and endeavoured to remould the Gaelic translations by their standard.

Other specimens might be quoted as the song words include translations by Dr Drennan, by a Mr Boyd, "the celebrated translator of Dante," Mr M'Neill, Robert Emmet, Thomas Russell (in a very sentimental eighteenth century style), Gilland (a fairly good song-writer), and Stott, a County Down man, who enjoyed the doubtful distinction of being mentioned in Lord Byron's satire on "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers/' as "grovelling Stott." Poems by Dean Swift and Campbell are copied as adaptable for the music.

1 Author of a famous temperance poem, " Scotland's Scaith."

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ANNALS OF THE IEISH HARPERS

Bunting, however, determined to try and arouse Thomas Campbell to a rivalry with Moore, and, with that in view, started for London in March 1809. The result was far from satisfactory. Campbell was a man, who, having secured easy success and early fame, was inclined to rest on his oars. At a later page will be found quotations from letters to Miss M'Cracken, in which Bunting alludes to his negotia- tions with Campbell. We find among the manuscripts a document he had drawn up for the guidance of this poet and others who might be induced to supply song-words for the airs.

He gives in all cases the subject matter of the Irish poems and a specimen verse in the metre suited to the music, and he also explains the character of the epithets usual in Irish songs ; that there are " frequent allusions to the perfumes of the apple-blossom," that " the cuckoo is frequently introduced into their songs."

His attempt to direct the verse writers on to Gaelic lines is profoundly interesting, and we rejoice for his sake to know that before he passed away he had seen a young poet rise up in Belfast in the person of Samuel Ferguson, who must have realised his ideal of a translator in such lines as these :

" Oh, had you seen the Coolun

Walking down the Cuckoo's street With the dew of the meadow shining

On her milk-white twinkling feet, Oh, my love she is and rny Coleen oge

And she dwells in Balnagar And she bears the palm of beauty bright

From the fairest that in Erin are."

Ferguson was strangely enough born 1810 in Belfast, shortly after the time when Bunting was sorrowing for want of a poet to translate the Gaelic songs of his collection, and he was destined to collaborate with the musician in his last labours. One would almost be led to believe that the

46

EDWARD BUNTING— INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR

strong desire of his townsfolk had summoned that poet spirit :rom the vasty deep.

The merits of the 1810 volume have been very justly estimated by Petrie, whose criticism of the 1792 collection we have already quoted. Having given the first criticism we let the other follow. He refers first to the words :

" If the well of Campbell's genius ran deep and clear, it was exceedingly difficult to pump anything out of it, and so after a long delay and innumerable fruitless applications, Bunting was ultimately obliged to content himself with two indifferent songs and permission to use two of the poet's ballads written long previous to the agreement, and which however excellent they confessedly were in their way, were entirely out of place in a collection of Irish melodies . . . but notwithstanding the want of merit or so-soishness generally of the words associated with so many of the airs, this volume was not only a beautiful, but a truly valuable one ; and though, as a whole, it was not so rich in melodies of the finest character as his first volume, it yet contained very many in no degree inferior — equally new to the public, and moreover arranged with such an exquisite grace, skill and judgment, as at once placed its Editor, in the opinion of the musical world, in the foremost rank of British Musicians, and as the most accomplished of those of his own country."

This alas ! was the only reward it procured him. Like his former collection its sale barely paid the expenses of its publication, and this chiefly through his friends in the North who had become subscribers to the work to encourage him GO undertake it. It was too costly, too repulsively learned with a long historical dissertation on the antiquity of the harp and bagpipes prefixed, to give it a chance of suiting t;he tastes or purses of the class of society which had bought the earlier work ; and among the higher classes there was then too little of Irish taste to incline them to receive it. So, after a fruitless effort to force a sale for it, while in his own

47

ANNALS OF THE IRISH HARPERS

hands, Bunting was at length glad, for a trifling sum, to transfer it altogether into those of his publishers, the Messrs Clementi ; and like its predecessor the work is now rarely to be seen.

According to Petrie 1 Bunting had in any case the pleasure of seeing his merit recognised by impartial critics in the musical world of London, and during the period, when the preparations for publication detained him there, he enjoyed much literary and intellectual society.

" At the hospitable table of the Messrs Longman he had the pleasure of meeting the men most distinguished in literature, and at the Messrs Broadwood he was made known to the most eminent men of his own profession. At these houses he used to delight his hearers by his performance of the Irish music; and with the Broad woods in particular, he was on this account as well as others, throughout his long life, an especial favourite ; so much so, that on his last visit to London in 1839, they presented him with a grand pianoforte which they allowed himself to choose out of their extensive manufactory."

The interest of the Broadwood family in Irish music, which was aroused by Bunting, has continued to the present day, as is evident from the work of Miss Lucy Broadwood, of the Folk-song Society. Her attitude towards Irish traditional music is one of sympathy and understanding.

At the end of the year 1809 his Belfast admirers celebrated the publication of his book by giving a banquet in his honour. It took place in O'Neill's Hotel, Rosemary Street, on 20th December, with Gilbert M'llveen in the Chair, and William Stevenson as Vice - Chairman. Old Arther O'Neill, who had now settled as instructor to the Harp Society in Belfast, was present with twelve pupils, all blind, and performed selections of music.

This festive ceremony was turned into a sort of anti-

1 In the Dublin University Magazine article already frequently quoted,

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EDWARD BUNTING— INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR

Moore demonstration, as the list of toasts included the names of men famous in the literary world, that of Moore being of set purpose omitted.

We find in Moore's " Life " by Lord John Russell a most :nteresting correspondence on the subject, for the poet of •;he melodies was actually very much hurt by the omission, as, of course, Bunting's Belfast supporters meant that he should be.

Mr Corry, a North of Ireland man, tried to gloss over ihe matter and to soothe Moore's feeling, explaining that •,he Belfast banquet was not so much a social and literary gathering as a mere demonstration got up to advertise and ;ouff Bunting's volume, in which the banquet promoters were financially interested.

The affair, however, rankled in Moore's mind, for, not content with the adulation of royalty, the aristocracy, and literary world of England, he was eager to be recognised as the uncrowned laureate of Ireland. The refusal of homage j'rom Belfast was a bar to his claim. With this in mind, we nan understand the exultation with which he at length read Bunting's acknowledgment of his supremacy, which has already been quoted.

Reference to the Sidebotham letters1 show us that his devotion to Irish music had not prevented Bunting from spreading in Belfast a taste for classical music. Mr vSidebotham, who resided in Belfast before going to practise law in London, was one of a party of distinguished amateurs who met under Bunting's direction to practise Beethoven's symphonies.

We will deal presently with the annals of the Harp Society, as this department of Bunting's work more especially concerns us, but not less to his credit is the fact that he conducted the first production of Handel's Messiah in Belfast. This took place in Dr Drurnmond's Church,

1 See pages 293-300.

49 D

ANNALS OF THE IRISH HARPERS

Rosemary Street, in October 1813, when a whole week was occupied by a musical festival on a large scale. The Oratorio was rendered by the choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. We shall here add some details from Bunting's private papers as to the expenses. "Mr Cooke and his wife " (the prima donna) Bunting enters as having been paid 100 guineas ; Spray (the tenor) and daughter, 45 guineas; Mahon Wedner, 30 guineas; Sidebotham, as secretary, regulating everything, received 30 guineas for his trouble ; and, after paying for the choir and a band of fifty, the expenses amounted to a total of £638. The concerts took place in the theatre, or, when an organ was required, in Dr Drummond's meeting-house.1 There is an addendum to the list of expenditure. "Paid Spray out of my own pocket 5 guineas, as he said that his rank as first tenor deserved it," by which we see that concert directors had to cope with the same difficulties as at the present day.

1 So much attention has been given to Bunting as a song-collector, that his career as an Organist has been scarcely sufficiently alluded to. The Belfast churches in which he officiated were St Anne's (as assistant), Dr Drummond's Church in Rosemary Street, where the Oratorio part of the Musical Festival was held, and finally St George's, High Street, Belfast. His longest stay was at Rosemary Street, where his position was more independent than at St Anne's. He was able at times to appoint a deputy, and devote himself to his song collecting.

50

CHAPTEK VI

EDWARD BUNTING AN INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR — (continued)

IT is now necessary for us to retrace our steps, and give some account of the results of the Belfast Harp Festival, a ad of Bunting's earliest publication in influencing public taste. We have dealt separately and at length with the subject of Thomas Moore's derivation of so many of his melodies from Bunting's gleanings.

Another literary personage, who had much influence in arousing the enthusiasm of the fashionable world, was Sydney Owenson, author of " The Wild Irish Girl " and other novels, later known to fame as Lady Morgan. Her memoirs and correspondence are of great interest, throwing light on the state of society in town and country.

In Arthur O'Neill's " Life " will be found a reference to " Owenson the Comedian " as an admirable singer of Irish airs. This popular actor, who flourished in the latter part of the eighteenth century, had at one period of his career inaugurated a National Theatre and Music Hall in Dublin, in which his singing formed as powerful an attraction as the drama. His venture was ruined by the Theatre Eoyal obtaining a monopoly, and he later became deputy-manager of it. His family, consisting of two daughters, were brought up under the opposing influences of an actor-father and a puritanical mother, whose whole pleasure was in the society of the followers of John Wesley. Lady Morgan has left

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a delightful account of her own christening, saying in conclusion :

" I am sorry not to be able to tell all this as a ' credible witness' of the scene narrated, for being but a month old I understood nothing about it; but I have so often heard of it from my father as I sat upon his knee, that my testimony, although hearsay evidence, may be accredited."

The company included Father Arthur O'Leary, a Dominican Friar, famous as a preacher and controversialist, who had broken lances in attacking the penal laws with John Wesley himself. Next to him was the Rev. Mr Langley, a missionary of Lady Huntingdon's College ; and amongst others present were Counsellor MacNally, Kane O'Hara, and Captain Jephson, three dramatists — Richard Daly, patentee of the Theatre Royal ; Signor Giardiani, the composer; Edward Tighe of Woodstock, a dramatic critic, " Counsellor Lysaght," the Irish improvisatore in his youth, the eloquent barrister and prime wit in his middle age, who acted as sponsor.

"The Rev. Charles Macklin, nephew to Macklin the actor and dramatic critic," who, she adds, " was so great a favourite with my father that he chose him to perform the ceremony of inaugurating me into the Church militant. But his preaching, however eloquent, was not equal to his skill in playing the Irish bagpipes, that most ancient and perfect of instruments. 'The Piper that played before Moses ' is still an Irish adjuration, and a personage who is at any rate sworn by. ... A branch of Shillelagh from its own wood near Dublin flourished as a Christmas tree in the centre of the table. . . . My father sang first in Irish and then in English Carolan's famous song of ' O'Rourke's Noble Feast,' whilst the chorus was swelled by the company. . . . Many years after this notable event, Counsellor Lysaght, an eminent barrister, going the Munster Circuit, bivouacked for the night at the house of a friend in Tipperary. He stole into the drawing-room, which was full of company, not to interrupt a song which a young girl was singing to

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EDWARD BUNTING— INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR

ler harp, it was the Irish cronan of Emun a Cnuic, 'Ned of the Hill ' ; the air was scarce finished when he sprang ibrward and seized the harpist in his arms, exclaiming, ' This must be Sidney Owenson — it is her father's voice— :ione but an Irish voice could have such a curve in it, and ,she is my god-child ' '

We quote at this length to introduce the reader to a picture of " The Wild Irish Girl " with her harp. Her memoirs throughout afford a complement to O'Neill's evidence of the popularity of music, and the manner of education in Irish country houses. In the eighteenth century young people of quality were not sent to schools, nor was a general governess or tutor " of all work " kept. Tutor specialists went from house to house ; one time it was the writing master, next a French emigrt or a Latin-learned parson, ii dancing-mistress succeeded to a person who had dealt with more serious branches of culture, and the wandering minstrel was detained on his journey as a guest in some great house to give sets of harp-lessons to the family and neighbours.

An Irish Government Department has, by the way, inaugurated in late years a somewhat similar system of itinerant instruction.

Sydney Owenson gives a description of her own debtit as a governess, which contrasts delightfully with the dismal experiences of Charlotte Bronte. Leaving a dance in Dublin attired in muslin and pink silk stockings, with no time to change, she bundled herself up in a great Irish cloak, and went by coach to the country house of a Mrs Fetherston- 1 augh in Westmeath. The dinner party on her arrival included the lady of the house, her two daughters, two itinerant preceptors, Mr O'Hanlon, a writing and elocution- master, and a dancing-master, Father Murphy, the P. P., and the Rev. Mr Beaufort, Protestant curate.

The parish priest proposed the health of the new

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governess, and after dinner the butler announced "that the piper had come from Castletown to play in Miss Owenson, upon which the girls immediately proposed a dance in the back hall, and when I told them I was a famous jig-dancer they were perfectly enraptured. So we set to, all the servants crowding round the two open doors in the hall."

She concludes this account of her terpsichorean debut into the scholastic profession by describing the last occasion on which she had danced a jig in public during the Viceroyalty of the Duke of Northumberland, when at Dublin Castle she accepted a challenge from Lord George Hill, and defeated him.

Like Thomas Moore, Lady Morgan found, through the music of Ireland and her fresh and charming mode of render- ing it, an enthusiastic reception into aristocratic society. She became the pet of the Marchioness of Abercorn, and was married in the drawing - room of Baronscourt to Charles Morgan, the family physician, who was knighted to give the wild Irish girl the title of Lady.

She exerted herself on behalf of tfre preservation of the Irish harp, and Egan at Dublin, who started as a harp- maker after the Belfast Festival, owed many orders to her recommendation.

Lady Abercorn, in a letter to her, wrote on receiving one :

" Your harp is arrived, and for the honour of Ireland, I must tell you, is very much admired and quite beautiful. Lady Aberdeen x played on it for an hour last night, and thought it very good. . . . Pray tell poor Egan I shall show it off to the best advantage, and I sincerely hope he will have many orders in consequence."

In 1805, Sydney Owenson had bought her own harp out of the earnings resulting from the sale of her first novel.

1 Lady Abercorn's married daughter.

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TURLOGII O'CAROLAN.

(From an old Engraving.]

EDWARD BUNTING— INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR

To her interest we owe the description of Harper Hempson, which finds a place later in this volume. Interested by the reference to him in Bunting's book, she sent Mr Sampson, a Derry gentleman, to interview him in his home at Magilligan, as she found it impossible to journey there herself. She encouraged the various harp festivals and the Harp Society founded in Dublin, and finally, through her exertions, a beautiful bas-relief portrait of Carolan playing on his harp was executed by the famous sculptor Hogan, and erected in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.

Though her musical taste was obviously inherited from her father, much of her enthusiasm was inspired by Bunting's efforts. This account of the part she played in making Irish music and the Irish harp fashionable may find a place here without our being accused of unwarrant- able digression.

We shall now deal with the various societies formed to preserve and popularise the harp.

A year before Bunting's second volume was published, Dr James MacDonnell and other leading Belfast men, with Bunting as musical organiser, and John M'Adam as secretary, founded the Irish Harp Society of Belfast. Perhaps a mistake was made in trying to connect the musical effort with a philanthropic aim — namely, to pro- vide occupation for the blind. The first Harp Society, in fact, organised a regular institute for the blind, and the pupils were boarded as well as instructed, with the excep- tion of a few day-pupils resident in Belfast. Old Arthur O'Neill was employed as preceptor, and we owe to his residence in Belfast between the years 1808-1813 the fact that his interesting autobiography has been preserved. It was taken down from his dictation by Tom Hughes, a lawyer's clerk, who figures otherwise among our manuscript collection as " Mbbs," Mr Bunting's private secretary.

Dr W. H. Grattan Flood, in his " History of Irish Music,"

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briefly but sufficiently summarises the record of the first Belfast Harp Society :

" At length, on St Patrick's Day 1808, the Belfast Harp Society was formally inaugurated at Linn's Hotel, the White Cross, No. 1 Castle Street. In the list of original subscribers (one hundred and ninety-one) the total annual subscriptions amounted to £300, Lord O'Neill being appointed first presi- dent, vice Bishop Percy of Dromore, who declined the honour. The first teacher was Arthur O'Neill, and the classes opened with eight day-pupils and a girl, Bridget O'Reilly. Of these two were dismissed in June 1810 for inaptitude to learn, thus leaving seven boarding-pupils, viz. : Patrick O'Neill, Patrick M'Grath, Edward M'Bride, Nathaniel Rainey, Abraham Wilkinson, James M'Molaghan and Bridget O'Reilly, in addition to Edward O'Neill, Hugh Dornan and John Wallace as day-scholars. Harps were supplied by Messrs White, M'Clenaghan and M'Cabe, of Belfast, at a cost of ten guineas each. From 1809 till 1811 there were Irish classes in connection with the Belfast Harp Society, with James Cody as Professor, the grammar used being that by Rev. William Neilson, D.D. In 1812 the society was in difficulties, and it collapsed in 1813, having expended during the six years of its existence £955. To the credit of the society poor O'Neill was given an annuity of £30 * a year, but he did not long enjoy it, as his death occurred at Maydown, Co. Armagh, on October 29th, 1816, aged eighty-eight. His harp is in the Museum of the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society." 2

To this we may add, in relation to Irish being taught to the harp pupils, that Bunting says all harpers previous to O'Neill had used Irish terms in regard to their instrument and music. A Miss O'Reilly, of Scarva, was the last person to be taught the harp through the medium of Irish. Through her and other sources Bunting carefully collected all the Irish technical musical terms, which were duly published in 1840.

The unfortunate Patrick Lynch had assisted Dr Neilson

1 Dr James MacDonnell was the donor.

2 Transierred to the Municipal Collection, 1810.

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with the Irish grammar. It is quite a literary production, containing a splendid phraseology, and amongst other things the famous " Lament of Deirdre for the Sons of Uisneach " is given as a reading and recitation exercise.

The work of the first Belfast Harp Society was emulated in Dublin, where John Bernard Trotter, a talented but eccentric man of means, who had been secretary to Charles James Fox, became the guiding spirit.

Patrick Quinn, who had been one of the youngest harpers in Belfast, 1792, was brought from the North as instructor. The society was inaugurated 13th July 1809 with an influential list of subscribers, including Tom Moore and Walter Scott. The last-named, by the way, must have surely realised that he had been premature in poetically chronicling "The Last Minstrel."

Bernard Trotter gave £200 a year to the Harp Society, and at his residence of Richmond, near Clontarf, he entertained in great style. Quinn, seated in a picturesque arbour, used to delight the numerous guests on festive occasions with the strains of his harp. Trotter also carried out a grand Carolan Commemoration, where Quinn figured along with many dis- tinguished musicians including Sir John Stevenson, of Melodies fame. Trotter became bankrupt in 1817 owing to his extravagance, and his Harp Society expired. His own death occurred in Cork, 1818.

In the following year, 1819, just when Bunting, who had for a couple of years been organist of St George's, was about to leave Belfast, a pleasant surprise occurred in the arrival of a gift of £1,200 for the purpose of reviving the harp and the ancient music of Ireland. The money was subscribed by a number of Irishmen resident in India, headed by the Marquis of Hastings, formerly prominent in Irish affairs as Lord Moira.

This generous subscription re-started the Harp Society, which was inaugurated 6th April 1819. Classes were

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started with Edward M' Bride, and afterwards Valentine Rennie, as teachers. The scheme was carried on for fully twenty years. The teacher Rennie, dying in 1837, was succeeded by James Jackson, who taught harp classes in Cromac Street for one year more, when the society finally expired. References to the last efforts of the Harp Society will be found in Dr MacDonnell's letters, where we find him boasting of the talents of the pupils, and where we are told of Mary M'Cracken superintending the making of a harp.

Drogheda, where Bunting had lived as a child, and where his brother Anthony had been organist for many years, was the next scene of a Harp Society effort. It is pleasing to know that the society started there in January 1842, two years before Bunting's death, and he must have been cheered by news of it.

Father Thomas Burke, O.P., of Drogheda, was organiser ; Hugh Fraser, teacher of fifteen pupils. A German scholar called Kohl, travelling in Ireland in 1843, was entertained by Father Burke at a musical recital, of which he has given a vivid description :

" The first person who came forward," writes Kohl, " was an Irish declaimer, a man from among the people, I know not whether a gardener, a carpenter, a ploughman, or a broken farmer, but I was told he knew a countless number of old Irish songs and poems. He came in, and thus addressed me: 'I am come out of friendship for him/ meaning the priest. ' He told me that there was a foreigner here who wished to hear some of our old Irish poems, and I will gladly recite to him what I know. . . . Our fore- fathers have handed down to us a great number of poems from generation to generation, and very beautiful they are if you could only understand them. How beautiful is the song of the glittering Spring, which is but three miles distant from our town, or that of Cuchullin, the Irish Champion, who went to Scotland. Shall I begin with the story of Cuchullin ? ' '

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So he related the story of Cuchullin's strife with his own son, whom he slew unwittingly. Then a harper was introduced who played Brian Borou's " March " and the traveller listened in rapture, and says :

" When Moore mournfully sings,

" ' The Harp that once through Tara's halls

The soul of music shed Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls As if that soul were dead.'

"We must not understand him literally. Many harps still thrill all through Ireland, and although the Harpers' Society of Belfast was lately dissolved, yet another has been founded at Drogheda, of which the Clergyman whose guest I was is the soul and president. His whole room was full of harps, and comprised many new ones."

To this account of Kohl's the present writer would add the evidence of a cousin, who died lately at a very advanced age. In the middle of life she opened a ladies' school at Drogheda, and was delighted on arriving in the town to hear of an old harper who rendered ancient Irish music in an exquisite fashion. She invited him to the school to play for her pleasure and for the pupils, and finally induced him to give her and her sister some lessons. This must have been one of the survivors of the Harp Society.

Kohl's description of the priest's room full of harps recalls a visit we paid to the Rev. Monsignor O'Laverty, P.P. of Holywood, the learned historian of the diocese of Down. The monsignor was as great an enthusiast as Dr MacDonnell would have desired to follow in his footsteps. He was' instrumental in starting the making of harps in Belfast, and boldly advocated the introduction of the instrument into National Schools, instead of the squeaky harmonium and tinkling pianos so often found.

Through his enterprise and advocacy, and the support of

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the Gaelic League and Feis Ceoil Committees, the Irish hand harp is not obsolete, and even in London it is occasionally heard as an accompaniment to song at the concerts of the Folk Song and Irish Literary Societies. Is it not recorded in the preface of this book that it was through the medium of an Irish harp that the grandson of Edward Bunting was discovered to be resident near London ? An expedition in quest of an instrument for a concert led finally to the threshold of Dr Louis MacRory, and to the custodianship of his grandfather's precious relics.

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CHAPTER VII

EDWARD BUNTING — AN INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR — (continued)

THIRTEEN years had elapsed between the publication of Bunting's first and second collection. The latter, appearing at the end of 1809, was not to be followed by the third and final volume till the year 1840 ; but we are not to rashly conclude that his enthusiasm in the subject had waned. We have seen that his efforts were never rewarded by a due financial return, and that his published airs were pirated or lavishly borrowed from ; so, whilst he continued in his work of research and collection, this was done at his leisure and as a labour of love, in the intervals of his necessary occupation as organist and teacher.

The great musical festival of 1813 must have helped to spread his fame to Dublin, and in a few years' time he went to reside there. There were two reasons which decided him to this step. His elder brother Anthony, for whom he had a warm attachment, had for some years been resident in the capital, and the lady who was now to be his wife had also left Belfast, and with her mother was conducting a ladies' school in Dublin.

Bunting, as we have seen, had been something of a spoiled youth, and a popular dining-out bachelor. He had lived an unsettled and roving life of necessity in connection with his teaching work and music-collecting. Though early left an orphan, a home was provided for him with the M'Cracken family from his early youth.

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The last glimpse we get of his life as a bachelor is from the pen of Petrie, and at an era which Charles Lever has very well described in one of his military novels. It was in Paris in 1815, while the allied sovereigns occupied it after the fall of Napoleon at Waterloo:

"On this occasion," writes Petrie, "his portly, well-fed English appearance procured him the honour of being harm- lessly blown up, by a mass of squibs and crackers being placed under him as he was taking a doze on a seat in the Boulevards, by a crowd of mischievous Frenchmen, who, surrounding him, followed up the explosion with roars of laughter and exclamations of 'Jean Bull!' Here, too, he made intimacies with many of the most eminent musicians, whom he no less delighted by the beauty of the Irish airs which he played for them than he surprised them by the assurance which he gravely gave that the refined harmonies with which he accompanied them were equally Irish, and contemporaneous with the airs themselves. 'Match me that,' said Bunting proudly to the astonished Frenchmen, as, slapping his thigh to suit the action to the word, he rose from the pianoforte after delighting them with the performance of one of his finest airs.1 . . . Led by his love for music, and particularly of the organ, which was at all times his favourite instrument, he passed from France into Belgium, where from the organists of the great instruments at Antwerp and Haarlem he acquired much knowledge, which it was our good fortune to have often heard him display on our own organ at St Patrick's."

Four years later, on 20th January 1819, he wrote to Mrs Chapman, a widow, lady principal of a school at 18 Leeson Street, Dublin, and asking the hand of her daughter, Miss Mary Anne Chapman, in marriage.

This family had formerly been resident in Belfast, where Mrs Chapman also had kept school. It is advertised in the

1 The great Catalan!, delighted with Bunting's performance of some of the Irish airs, took a diamond ring off her finger and presented it to Bunting. It is now in the possession of his granddaughter, Lady Deane.

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EDWAKD BUNTING— INTEODUCTOEY MEMOIE

Belfast Newsletter of 1819-1820 as having been located at the corner of Curtis Street, near York Street.

As Petrie, in the University Magazine, says Mrs Chapman had removed to Dublin some time previous to this, it may have been that her daughter remained some little time in Belfast conducting the older establishment, whilst her mother was launching the new enterprise. A brother was already in Dublin, a fellow of Trinity College, and this gave the family a status and educational connection.

About the very time when Mrs Chapman was leaving Belfast, the wife of Bunting's brother John was advertising the most fashionable ladies' school in the town as being removed from 67 Donegal Street to a building in Donegal Place, with an outlook on the castle and into a fine garden situated at the angle of Castle Street.

Of this brother John we hear very little, save that he was also engaged as a music-teacher. There may have been some rivalry with Edward in the musical line, and at the same time between the school-teaching ladies. At any rate, Mrs John Bunting, who had been a Miss Ash, with good local connections, nourished exceedingly. Little medals awarded at her school have been handed down inscribed with the names of the grandmothers of present-day citizens.

The granddaughter of Edward Bunting informed the present writer that her mother never spoke of any uncle but Anthony, to whom they were all attached. Uncle John and his triumphant school-teaching wife may not have been friendly. We must, however, not stray away in conjecture.

The fact remains that Mrs Chapman had been in Belfast, removed to Dublin, and that for the sake of her daughter Edward uprooted himself from his old familiar surround- ings in the town which he had come to as a child prodigy ; through her gentle and benign influence, moreover, he did what was more difficult, in breaking away from habits and modes of life in which he was becoming confirmed.

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The Harp Festival had proved the turning-point of his youth, providing him with an ideal and aim to work for, and now that the aim was accomplished, and a position of ease assured, a new stimulus was given by his love for his chosen wife. Succeeding in winning her hand, a new life opened up before him. Petrie, who seems to have received Bunting's own confidences on this matter, deserves to be quoted here :

" Hitherto, it should be observed, he had, for a period of more than forty years been living at little cost with the respectable family of the M'Crackens at Belfast, to whose house he had been invited when he arrived there at the age of eleven, ' getting and spending ' as he pleased, but certainly not saving. He had now to commence house- keeping on his own account. To begin the world, as we might almost say, to earn his bread in a new locality where he was comparatively little known, and where he would have to contend with the professors of his art of high powers and established reputations, and that at an advanced period of life, when the mind is as indisposed to form new friendships or associations as the public is to reciprocate them. Yet he was not unsuccessful. Through the influence, chiefly of his northern connections, he soon got into an extensive practice as a teacher in the higher circles, and was appointed organist of St Stephen's Chapel, and thus toiling daily, and without rest, he was enabled to support a growing family in respectability, and had the happiness to leave them able, if required, by the exercise of their own talents, to provide for themselves."

To the difficulties commented upon by Petrie we may add the fact that the newly-married couple, elderly husband and young wife, at first resided with Mrs Chapman. Bunting had not known since his early childhood the loving rule of a mother. The rule of a mother-in-law would naturally have been all the more irksome, and he was a man who, by his own avowal, suffered from irritability of

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temper. After a brief experiment the joint housekeeping was abandoned, and Mr and Mrs Edward Bunting removed from 18 Leeson Street to a home of their own at 28 Upper Baggot Street. Later on they resided at No. 45, in the same street. An intimate glimpse into the happiness of his married life is given us in a letter written to Mary M'Cracken, which we may quote apart from the corre- spondence later on which deals with his publication work. It is dated 29th December, 1820, when his heart was still tender with rejoicing over his first-born child, the only son, little Anthony.

" We cannot live for ourselves alone and I hope I shall grow better every day, at least as to those notions of pro- priety which all sensible folks practise and which I never did, to my shame be it spoken, till now.

" I for the first time received the Sacrament at Patrick's Cathedral on Christmas Day with my lady. She seems happy now to what she did during her mother's super- intendence of the household, in consequence of my altered behaviour perhaps. My little darling son, she and I take the greatest delight in. He is grown handsome. All the people are delighted with him. I intend to be in Belfast on Thursday per day mail so I shall soon see you all once more, hearty and well. — I am with true affection ever yours sincerely, E. BUNTING."

Thus did he open his heart about his home happiness, and his resolve to try to live in worthiness of it, to the friend who had been as a sister by his side since earliest youth.

Another letter is necessary to this life narrative, as it alludes to the fact that the links were not all broken with Belfast as regards musical work. He writes again to Mary M'Cracken :

"Dec. 27 1827. "28, UPPER BAGGOT ST.

"I received an unsought letter from the Trustees of Georges Church (where a new organ price £1000 has been

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put up lately), to be their organist with a salary of from £90 to £100 a year, for which situation above twenty candidates started and canvassed the Parish. My appointment is dated 1st December and the duty is twice per week, Wednesday and Fridays and Sundays also. They would not allow me a deputy at present so that I could not go to Belfast to you.

" I am indebted for this place to the Attorney-General, who sent for me and spoke to me so kindly and friendly, that I was nearly overpowered with all my old recollec- tions of the Joy tribe, from your dear, dear, departed mother, till the present time, they have been an honour to Ireland from their first introduction into it, and friendly beyond my deserts have they been to me one and all of them since I was twelve years of age, now a period of 40 years."

The Attorney-General alluded to was Miss M'Cracken's cousin, Henry Joy, who shared the enthusiasm of his relatives for Irish music and antiquities. It was natural that he should extend a helping hand to Bunting.

St George's Church is a large Georgian building on the north side of Dublin, near Mountjoy Square, then a very fashionable quarter, and here we must picture to ourselves Bunting busy on Wednesdays and Fridays and Sundays, with a good deal of teaching amongst fashionable young ladies eager to become accomplished pianoforte players.

His allusion to Belfast would lead us to think that previous to this he went up north at intervals and continued to give sets of lessons. However, this was now impossible, as he could not leave a deputy. In Baggot Street the darling little son Anthony had two sisters to play with. With their support as his main object in life, expensive music publishing schemes were, for the time, unthought of. Tom Moore, soaring to exalted altitudes in society on the wings of poetry and song, may have at times given him twinges of irritable envy. That poet had gone on at

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intervals between the years 1807 and 1834, publishing his sets of Irish melodies up to the tenth, and from Bunting since 1810 there had come nothing. The volume, whose advent had been hailed by the Belfast banqueters, was now almost lost in oblivion.

CHAPTEK VIII

EDWARD BUNTING — AN INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR — (continued)

BUNTING, however, was destined to renew his labours and to spend the last years of his life in furthering the great aim which had inspired his youth.

There was now rising in Ireland a new school of antiquarian scholars — men who were to achieve great things in the realms of Irish language study, and of historical research. Amongst them the old musician was accorded recognition as historian and scribe of the last harpers, as one who had enquired into the character and antiquity of Irish music, the origin and development of the instruments. We are not told how or when Bunting made the acquaint- ance of John O'Donovan and George Petrie, but as he was accustomed to pursue investigations in Trinity College and the Eoyal Irish Academy, we may almost with certainty assume that Whitley Stokes was the connecting link.

This remarkable man lived till the year 1846, and his talents and patriotism were renewed in his descendants, in his son Dr William Stokes, and his grandson and grand- daughter, Margaret and Whitley Stokes.

The old veteran, Dr MacDonnell, was well in touch with the new school. In 1834, when John O'Donovan went to Ulster in connection with the Ordnance Survey at County Down, he called on Dr MacDonnell in Belfast in order to see a manuscript journal of the Irish Confederate War of 1641, by a Friar O'Mellan.

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He had previously investigated a copy of it made by a Mr M'Adam, but as this was somewhat incorrect, Dr MacDonnell gladly showed him the original which was then in his keeping, though the property of Lord O'Neill. O'Donovan writes : —

"The Doctor has promised me he will write to Lord O'Neill to whom the copy belongs and request of him to send it down to Mr Petrie where it will be properly trans- lated and elucidated. ... I am very anxious to preserve this fragment, as it forms a continuation of the ' Annals of the Four Masters.' "

We may here digress to state that a translation of this historical document, very fully annotated, is to be found in that admirable miscellany " Old Belfast ' by E. M. Young, M.E.I.A. Amongst the events chronicled in it is the death of Bunting's ancestor, Patrick Gruamach O'Quinn. He was killed in an attack of the English forces on Dungannon in July 1641, when the Irish were weakened by the absence of a large part of their army. They had been despatched by the Commander Phelim O'Neill to Doe Castle in Donegal to meet and greet the great Owen Eoe O'Neill, who was returning from the Low Counties to take the lead in the Irish War.

Dr MacDonnell in his letters to Bunting makes several references to " Dunnevan," as he spells the name, and once the third volume of the ancient music is embarked on, is constant in his advice that this great scholar and others like him should be referred to.

Writing in October 1836, however, the doctor seems to think that any plan of publication by Bunting is so indefinitely in the future, that he must not hope to see it realised. " I am," he writes, " so old and you so indolent." However, at the date Thursday, 16th August, 1838, we find a letter from Mr J. Sidebotham, a solicitor of 26 Hatton

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Gardens, London, from which we learn that Bunting was at last prepared to issue his final and monumental work. Sidebotham offers his assistance "in superintending the publication of the proposed works, correcting letter proofs, etc." on Bunting's terms, and in proportion to whatever the financial success of the publication might turn out. He urges haste.

"Let me entreat you to lose no more time. I am really alarmed when you bring to my recollection that it is twenty-eight years since you and I were so agreeably associated together in bringing out the first Volume" (i.e. that of 1809, really Bunting's second).

He also recalls their visits to Skarrat " the pewter-puncher, as he calls the engraver of the music plates, and the " glorious repasts or breakfasts," which they shared.

Mr Sidebotham subsequently engaged the same engraver, Skarrat, to produce the plates of the new work ; and from this point we have a constant correspondence amounting to scores of letters, from which we can only give typical selections. The delays, anxieties, impatience of Bunting are evident from Sidebotham's replies, which, with unfailing good humour and gaiety, still urge him on and keep him informed of all the doings of the pewter - puncher, his excuses on account of other work when payment is delayed, his grand achievements when ready money is forthcoming, rushing in with the plates wet.

Bunting gets an idea that Skarrat may pawn the plates to raise money. Sidebotham relieves this unfounded fear^by going and looking at them where they are carefully stored.

We learn that the plates were sent to Ireland in parcels of The Lancet, and from a letter of Skarrat (2nd May, 1839) the following :

"When you let me know how much each plate is to con tain of the Irish character, I will get the estimate and

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let you have it without delay. ... I must learn from a writing engraver what his charge will be for the Irish character, for these I cannot accomplish."

This passage is interesting as suggesting the mode by which it was likely intended to publish the Gaelic poetry collected by Lynch in 1802. We find among the MSS. certain of the song words copied in an exquisitely clear Gaelic script, which an engraver could have copied. The prospect of expense, or the success of Moore with his songs in English, or the coldness between Dr MacDonnell, the M'Crackens and the unlucky Patrick Lynch, prevented the carrying out of such a design of publication. It would have ante-dated Hardiman's Minstrelsy by many years, and giving words and music together would have eclipsed in importance that work or any of that character which has since appeared.

Dr MacDonnell's letters of the same period are extremely interesting, but can scarcely have given poor Bunting as much satisfaction as those of his musical friend. The doctor urged him to extraordinary effort, to leave no stone unturned, no point uninvestigated, particularly as regards "the essential differences between the music of different nations with the causes of those differences," and having alluded to investigations, which led to Greece, Rome, Egypt, the Holy Land, he says :

" Sir William Jones has traced something in Persia and the thread of this ends at Benares in the Sanscrit tongue where it should undoubtedly be followed ~by you into Thibet, and if nothing can be made out there or in China we are at the end of our tether."

Thibet, the terra-incognita, which is only now being opened up to explorers would seem to have been very much out of the way of the elderly music master in Upper Baggot Street, Dublin, but Dr MacDonnell was advising a library and

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not a geographical exploration, and knew what he was talking about.

Something would seem to have been made out in China, for a learned reviewer of Bunting's work writing in the University Magazine, January 1841, says:

" The few Chinese Melodies which have been com- municated to the public have a character so singularly old Scottish that they might well pass as Melodies of the Highlanders of Albin. Is it accidental, or the result of a common Scythian origin of the Scotch and the Chinese or Tartar race?"

In such investigations Dr MacDonnell goaded on Bunting. In his letters to his old* friend Mary M'Cracken, he confides all the trouble and weariness jthat the effort was costing him and his patient wife. The doctor was most triumphantly delighted to find that Mrs Bunting was so competent, and that, with her and Anthony to Depend on, the work could still go on even if he was " dished and deserted " by Petrie and Ferguson. Some such catastrophe he seems to have feared might result from Bunting's irritable temper: but these, his collaborateurs, were amongst the most amiable of men, and genuinely enthusiastic about what they had undertaken.

George Petrie, LL.D., is described in Lady Ferguson's life of her husband as :

" Perhaps most generally known by his researches on the Round Towers of Ireland and his essay on Tara Hill. His charming personality, his kindness, his gentleness and refine- ment endeared him to all who had the privilege of his friend- ship. It was characteristic of him that among them, he was ever spoken of as 'dear Petrie.' He was beloved as a father by the younger men, being their senior by many years. He loved Ireland and rendered her native music enchantingly on his violin, but he played only to a sym- pathetic audience."

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Petrie was indeed the disciple and successor of Bunting as a collector of Irish airs, and used his violin to capture the the elusive melodies sung in the cottages of Aran Islanders of Irish-speaking natives of other remote parts of Ireland. We are informed on the authority of Dr W. H. Grattan Flood that he was undoubtedly author of the biographical article on Bunting in the Dublin University Magazine, which we have quoted from so frequently.

He must have been a delightful companion, charming away with his conversation and his violin strains, the irascible moods of his friend, and giving him his due of praise and veneration as an incentive to this last work.

Samuel Ferguson, who provided^ the interesting intro- ductory article on " The Harp and Bagpipe " and who edited " The Lives of the Harpers " from O'N eill's diary and other sources, was at the outset of a distinguished career as poet and scholar. He was born in 1810, in the house of his maternal grandfather, High Street, Belfast, and educated at schools in that town. It is pleasing to believe that the atmosphere of historic research and of Irish musical revival, created in the years succeeding the Harpers' ^Festival, must have helped the growth of his youthful genius. At twenty-two years of age he made his mark with a poem "The Forging of the Anchor," contributed to Blackwood's Magazine, and at twenty - four, in the Dublin University Magazine, made certain translations from the Irish, in which he attained his highest mark as a lyrical poet. He had also written iiis historical tales " Hibernian Nights Entertainment," had oeen for some years a member of the Royal Irish Academy, and was called to the Bar in 1838, the very year that Sidebotham was arranging for the engraving of Bunting's ;plates.

Amongst his Dublin friends was Henry Joy, a lawyer already referred to, who had contributed to the learned '•Essay on the Harp" in Bunting's 1809 volume. With

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Dr William Stokes, son of Whitley Stokes, he was from an early period of his residence in Dublin on intimate terms.

Like Petrie, he was noted for benign temper, and with such helpers the way was smoothed for Bunting.

Ferguson took in hand the rugged accumulations of Bunting's learned research, the simple and humorous narra- tive that Blind Harper O'Neill had dictated to Tom Hughes, and put all into concise literary shape That he was reason- ably proud of his work for Bunting is proved by the fact that when in May 1848 he became engaged to Mary, the daughter of Robert Guinness of Stillorgan, his first gift to his betrothed was a volume of the ancient music.

But to return to Bunting's preparations for it.

Just when it was the eve of publication there was a visit to Belfast, where his two daughters accompanied him. We learn this from a little note from his wife, scribbled on one of Sidebotharn's letters, in which she announces the arrival of proofs, rejoices that the end is now in view, and sends her love to " my dear girls."

They were now growing up, bright attractive girls in their teens, and it was likely on the occasion of this visit that Sarah Bunting won the affection of her future husband, Mr MacRory.

They stayed at the house of Francis M'Cracken, the bachelor of the family for whom Mary kept house. During the visit Dr MacDonnell wrote frequent little notes which would lead us to believe that he was detained in the house through ill-health or much occupation. He got the loan of Lynch' s Journal, which he had never read before, and invited Bunting and the ladies to meet Sam Ferguson. Finally, when Bunting went away he left behind on his dressing- table two little slips of paper (careless man) which contained a Scotch version of the lamentation of " Dardrae," and the doctor sent it after him, reminding him of the occasion on which he had taken it down many long years ago.

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But amidst the papers relating to this period, nothing is more touching than the tone of the letters in which he unburdens his heart to his old friend, Mary M'Cracken, and confides the foreboding that he may never live to see the work finished, and his doubts (only too truly realised) that his family would not gain financially by all the labour. Death was indeed approaching, and doubtless he had felt some warnings of the fact, but a few short years remained which were to see his last work launched amid a chorus of approbation from all discerning critics.

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CHAPTER IX

EDWARD BUNTING — AN INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR — (concluded)

THE 1840 volume of The Ancient Music of Ireland was, as we have seen, briefly described by Thomas Moore as " a mess of trash." This rash judgment has most unfortunately found acceptance in some quarters, and is quoted, for example, in the account of Edward Bunting given in the admirable "Compendium of Irish Biography," by the late Alfred Webb.

It is most regrettable and amazing that the poet, whose name and fame is associated so intimately with Irish music, should have shown so little appreciation of this monumental work, in which the result of the life-long labours of Bunting are chronicled and illumined by the discerning gracefully- written essays of George Petrie and Samuel Ferguson.

At a meeting of the Irish Folk -Song Society, held in Dublin in the autumn of 1908, and presided over by its president, Lord Shaftesbury, the relatives and descendants of Edward Bunting were present, and had the pleasure of listening to a learned discussion on the characteristics of Irish music between Rev. Professor Bewerunge of Maynooth and Mr Brendan Rogers, the latter in referring to the methods and style of the Irish harpers, paid tribute to the absolutely faithful record preserved by Edward Bunting. His object was not to attain instant popularity by a display of his own talents, but, to quote the words of Mr Henry Joy,

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one of his earlier collaborators "to restore a page of the history of mankind."

The contents of the volume may be briefly summarised. There is first a preface dealing with the sources from which he gleaned the music, the Harpers' Festival, his visits to old Hempson of Magilligan, his journeys through the country.

" While forming these collections," he writes, " the Editor had an opportunity of rendering himself thoroughly acquainted with the genius and habits of the old people of the country. His plan would have been imperfect had he not resorted to the artless modulations of the aged heads of families, and of females taught by their parents to sing to children on the breast, or at the milking of the cow. In these excursions, especially in the remote parts of Tyrone and Derry in Ulster, and of Sligo and Mayo in Connaught, he has had the satisfaction of procuring old music and experiencing ancient hospitality, at the same time, among people of manners so primitive and sincere as could leave no doubt on any mind of the perfect genuine- ness of everything about them. Had he gained nothing else on these occasions but a knowledge of the worth and warm heartedness of his poor countrymen, a knowledge so little sought after by those who might turn it to the best account, he would have been well repaid for all his toil. But his acquaintance with the humours and dis- positions of the people, has, he conceives, enabled him to preserve with a fidelity unattainable to any stranger, how- ever sincere and honest in his notation, the pure, racy, old style and sentiment of every bar and note in his collection."

There follows a learned disquisition on the characteristics of Irish melody, and the second chapter deals with the method of playing and musical vocabulary of the old Irish harpers. This includes, what should be of extraordinary interest to Gaelic students — a complete vocabulary in the

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Irish language with translation, of everything connected with the instrument. The vocabulary is an exhaustive one of several hundred words.

The third chapter by Samuel Ferguson, M.R.I. A., on the * antiquity of the "Harp and Bagpipe" is prefaced by a superb plate of the old harp in Trinity College, Dublin, usually spoken of as Brian Borou's. A learned enquiry into the origin of this harp by George Petrie, follows with further full page illustrations. There is then given a history of the various efforts to revive the Irish harp, and extracts from the lives of the harpers, largely drawn from the O'Neill "Autobiography," and introducing incidentally Samuel Ferguson's translations from the Gaelic " Farewell to Alba," and the "Lament for the Sons of Usneach."

A classification and history of the airs included in the volume follows, which goes far to prove the great antiquity of some of them, distinguishing these whose origin is obscured in the mist of ages from others attributed to bards whose names live in history, which again are separated from the modern compositions of Carolan.

The Irish names of the hundred and fifty melodies are next given, in Irish character, parallel with an equivalent in Roman type, and in English translation.

An index giving the English title and source of every air published, whether recorded from the harpers or taken down from a rural singer, with the date of the year in which it was recorded.

The Irish cry or caoine, for example, was taken from three separate sources, from "O'Neill, the Harper," from " Hired Keeners at Armagh," and from a " Manuscript over a Hundred Years Old."

A solid foundation of scientific research was therefore laid for all who came after.

It is satisfactory to know that the importance of the work was recognised in certain quarters,

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The Athenceum, Literary Gazette, and Tait's Magazine published highly appreciative notices, and in September 1840 Bunting wrote to his daughter Sarah (afterwards Mrs MacEory) when on a visit to Belfast, to go to Dr MacDonnell and borrow Chamber's Edinburgh Journal, with a long paper in it about a young man who wrote down Irish tunes in 1792. This was written by Eobert Chambers,1 himself a collector of old Scottish folk-songs, so the appreciation was all the more welcome.

" We close with regret Mr Bunting's volume because we believe that with it we take leave of the genuine Music of Ireland. It must not be regarded as a Musical publication alone, but as a National Work of the deepest antiquarian and historical interest. Were we to institute a literary comparison, we could say that Moore's Irish Melodies had about them all the fascination of poetry and romance, Bunting's collections all the sterner charms of truth and history. When we hear Sir John Stevenson's Irish Melodies played by a young lady on the pianoforte, or even on the pedal harp, we do not hear the same music, which O'Cahan, Carolan and Hempson played. It is as much altered as Homer in the translation of Pope. For the true present- ment of this music to modern ears we require the old sets as preserved in the volumes of Bunting and 'The Irish Harp' played by an Irish harper."

The anonymous author (whom we have seen to be George Petrie) wrote in his biographical article in Bunting 1847 :

" Of the success of this work as a pecuniary speculation we are not in a position to speak. We believe, however, that its sale, though not equal to its deserts has not been

1 Mrs Alice C. Bunten, daughter of Robert Chambers, writes : ' ' My father was an enthusiastic lover of music, and my earliest recollections are dancing with my sisters round the room, while my father played the flute accompanied on the piano by my mother, who was also celebrated for her taste in music. We were brought up on the old Scottish songs, and nursery jingles, and my father made a collection of them, which he published for private circulation, called Scottish Songs prior to Burns,"

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inconsiderable . . . but it was not for such reward that Bunting toiled', and its publication was, for the very few years which he survived it, not only a matter of the greatest happiness and consolation to him, but it excited him to devote the leisure of those years to the re-arrangement of the old airs and to terminate his labours by leaving behind him a complete uniform and he trusts very nearly perfect collection of Irish music. And thus with the ruling passion strong in death, he departed this life, as we trust for a better on the 21st December, 1843, aged 70 and was interred in the Cemetery of Mount Jerome."

It may be added that* Bun ting's death occurred very suddenly, the weariness of which he complained in his letters to his life-long friend, Mary M'Cracken, was a fore- warning of heart failure, which overtook him on that December night, when, taking his bedroom candle in hand, he was about to go upstairs and retire to rest. Overcome with faintness, he was obliged to seat himself on the stairs,' and there suddenly expired.

Petrie concludes with a description of his appearance and an appreciation of his character, valuable as coming from such a source.

" Edward Bunting was in size above the middle stature and he was strongly made and well-proportioned. His somewhat English face was also symmetrical and its ex- pression manly and independent, full of intelligence and character, a and must in youth have been eminently hand- some. And though his manners might be found fault with as occasionally rough and unpolished, in appearance at least he was always the gentleman." (Note Petrie's impression of the characteristic Northern bluffness, acquired by Bunting in Belfast.) " His mental qualities were naturally of a higher order and remarkably extensive, for though they had never received culture, or been applied in a systematic way to any study but that of his art, there were few departments of knowledge, in which he did not take an interest and learn something. He had a fine perception of, and an enthusiastic

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love for, the beauties of Nature, and a high appreciation of the charms of Poetry and of all the fine Alts, though in most of them his subject was circumscribed. In short, he was in everything a lover of beauty, and it was this senti- ment that enabled him to appreciate so truly, and free from professional prejudice, the excellence of our Native music, and that marked his own musical performance with a charm which the more powerful and brilliant execution of great instrumentalists could hardly equal.

"Strong in his attachments, he was an affectionate husband, father, brother, and friend ; but as his temper had been spoiled by indulgence, and want of control in early life, it was sometimes necessary for his friends to bear a little with this infirmity, which, however, to those he loved, was never more than a passing cloud upon the sun- shine of his genial nature, and hence his friends were not numerous. But that he was susceptible of the warmest and most lasting attachments is abundantly proved by the fact of his residence in friendship with the M'Cracken family for .i period of forty years, and that that friendship was never oroken or interrupted till -his death, twenty years after. Let us also add his attachment to ourselves, which, though lot of so very long a standing, could hardly have been of a kindlier nature."

Thus writes Petrie, a man who had done much to brighten Bunting's last years, and who followed in his fiteps as a collector of Irish traditional music.

Bunting's elder brother, Anthony, survived him for some years, and, having been left childless by the death of his only daughter Susan, was of great assistance to the widow find orphan family.

* Edward's only son, called af ber this kind uncle, Anthony, was a young man of brilliant promise, articled to a great engineer MacNeill, who built the Drogheda Viaduct.

From a letter of Sidebotham's, written in 1840, we learn tuat even then young Anthony had embarked in his career. The London lawyer had been asked to send him certain

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scientific instruments addressed to Anthony Bunting, Lough S willy (Donegal), which is "a queer address," writes Sidebotham, "except there be a town of that name as well as an arm of the sea."

This young man was in a position to support his mother and sisters, but was unfortunately cut off by death in the prime of youth and promise.

An effort to have the name of Mrs Bunting placed upon the civil pension list, in recognition of her husband's research work, was of no avail, though a great rally of admirers of his genius forwarded the application; but a happy and comfortable home was provided before long for the wife who had sustained the last labours of Bunting, and who had taken a heavy share in them.

Her daughters are described in a letter of Mr Orr's, a Belfast man resident in Dublin, as having been very good- looking and charming.

The elder, Sarah, married Mr MacRory, a member of a well-to-do Belfast family. He resided in Rutland Square, Dublin, and there Mrs Bunting lived till her death some years later. Before she passed away she had the happiness to see her other daughter, Mary, married to Mr Wright. The descendants of these families it is who, inheriting the papers of Edward Bunting, placed them in the hands of the present writer. It may be said in conclusion, that his love of Irish music has also come down as a heritage to the fourth generation.

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CHAPTEK X

THE HARP IN ANCIENT IRELAND

To appreciate the character and importance of the music of the harpers, prefaced and published by Bunting, it is necessary to understand the place which the harp took in the social life of Ireland for a very lengthened period.

In his 1809 and 1840 volumes, Bunting gave a great deal of space to learned articles dealing with the history of the instrument as known to other races and nations. The opinions of scholars, historians, poets, and travellers in different ages are quoted to show that Irish musicians were at all times acknowledged to be supreme as harpers. The most convincing quotation is from Giraldus Cambrensis, who accompanied the early Norman invaders to Ireland and wrote an account of the country, with the express object of proving its barbarity and need of a civilising and Christianising influence.

But even this hostile critic could not find language too complimentary to express his opinion of the Irish harpers, and in Bunting's 1809 volume he is quoted in translation as follows : —

" The attention of this people to musical instruments I find worthy of commendation. Their skill is beyond com- parison superior to that of any nation I have seen. For in these the modulation is not slow and solemn, as in the instruments of Britain to which we are accustomed, but the sounds are rapid and precipitate, yet at the same time sweet

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and pleasing. It is wonderful how in such precipitate rapidity of the fingers, the musical proportions are pre- served, and, by their art, faultless throughout. In the midst of their complicated modulations and most intricate arrange- ment of notes, by a rapidity so sweet, a regularity so irregular, a concord so discordant, the Melody is rendered harmonious and perfect whether the chords of the diatessaron (the fourth) or diapente (the fifth) are struck together ; yet they always begin in a soft mood and end in the same, that all may be perfected in the sweetness of delicious sounds. They enter on, and again leave their modulations with so much subtlety; and the twinklings of the small strings sport with so much freedom under the deep notes of the bass, delight with so much delicacy and soothe so softly that the excellency of their art seems to lie in concealing it."

To this is added in Bunting's preface :

"This description so perfectly answers to the airs now published, that it strengthens the conclusion that they have not suffered in the descent, but have come down to us in the very forms in which we wish now to transmit them to those who shall succeed us."

An Italian historian of music, Vincentio Galilei, in a work printed at Florence in 1581, is also quoted as saying :

> " This most ancient instrument was brought to us from Ireland " (as Dante says), " where they are excellently made and in great numbers, the inhabitants of that island having practised on it for many many ages. . . . The Harps which this people use are considerably larger than ours and have generally the strings of brass, and a few of steel for the highest notes, as in the Clavichord. The musicians who perform on it keep the nails of their fingers long, forming them with care in the shape of the quills which strike the strings of the spinnet."

More enthusiastic even than these opinions of foreigners

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are the allusions of ancient Irish poets, chroniclers and tale-writers, to the beauty of music, and its effect upon its hearers.

The subject is very fully dealt with in Eugene O'Curry's work on the " Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish." Dr W. H. Grattan Flood's " History of Irish Music " abounds in quotations and testimonies.

The musical skill of the Irish, as exhibited on the harp in particular, is, moreover, acknowledged in the fact that the harp has come to be the heraldic emblem of Ireland, and that its outline was stamped on our coinage by the English sovereigns from the time of Henry VIII. till the union ; some say that in a rude form it appeared from the time of King John.

Urchins playing pitch - and - toss in our streets, still demand before spinning the coin, " Head or harp." Britannia with her trident now appears on the reverse, but all the same, the memory of the harp that was in use so long still lingers.

Before coming to the memoirs of the last harpers, and the record of their gathering at Belfast, let us restore clearly in our minds the historical figures of the ancient harpers of Ireland. Eugene O'Curry in his lectures on the "Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish," relates this anecdote, which is embodied in a tale and poem attributed to MacLiag, a famous poet of the tenth century, who was attached to the Court of the great King Brian Borou. It illustrates the fact that the harper was distinct from the poet, and frequently in attendance on the latter.

On one occasion MacLiag was travelling from Lough Kiach, in County Galway, to visit King Brian at his palace of Kincora on the Shannon. He was attended by his usual retinue of learned men and pupils and by Ilbrechtach, a harper, who had previously been harper to Flann MacLonan, predecessor of MacLiag, as poet to King Brian's

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tribe of the Dal-Cais. The path of this procession lay over the high and dreary range of mountains called Sliabh Echtge, separating the counties of Galway and Clare. As they sat to rest on the side of Ceann Crochan, one of the hills of the range, MacLiag looked out over the prospect and said : " Many a hill and lake and fastness is in this district, and it would take great learning to know them all."

To this Ilbrechtach, the harper, said : " If it were Flann MacLonan that were here, he could name them all and give the origin of their names besides."

" Let this fellow be taken and hanged," said MacLiag.

The harper begged a respite till next morning, -and he was granted it. When morning came they saw the form of his dead master, MacLonan, approaching, who pleaded with MacLiag, saying that he would relate the names and origin of every notable place in the mountain range, if the life of the condemned harper was spared.

His request was granted, whereupon he recited a poem of one hundred and thirty-two lines, commencing:

" Delightful, delightful lofty Echtge."

and followed by the history of the mountains, the warriors and tribes, who had made it their hunting ground including the famous Finn MacCumhaill and his band. Giving the names of peaks, lakes, rivers, fords, woods, he concluded with a eulogy of the Dalcassians of Clare. The poem goes on as if composed by the ghost of MacLonain, describing how he had been killed by a party of robbers.

O'Curry cannot decide whether MacLiag thus recited and introduced a poem by MacLonan, or whether the the whole composition was his own.

I cannot help thinking that we have here an example of a primitive drama, which was recited in the palace of Kincora. The story of the quarrel with the harper, through jealousy of his former master, his condemnation to death,

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THE HARP IN ANCIENT IRELAND

his deliverance by the appearance of the dead poet's ghost, and the recital of the poem which ingeniously led up to praise of King Brian's royal clan, all give scope for a dramatic recital in which different parts could be taken by the members of the bardic suite. If the poetical part was the work of MacLonan, MacLiag all the same would have won applause for his artistic skill in introducing the descriptive poem by the dead bard, who had been high in favour with King Brian's father, and who would be lovingly remembered by the old men present.

Such dramatic dialogues in verse frequently break the course of the old historical narratives. " The History of the "Wars of the Gael and Gall " describing the course of events that led up to the battle of Clontarf, contains several, notably a disputation between Brian and his elder brother, Mahon, who was King before him. Mahon had made peace with the Danish invaders, but Brian, with a band of followers, waged unceasing war against them. At last he arrived in the presence of his royal brother, and their conversation is related in verse, Mahon beginning :

" Alone art thou, 0 Brian at Banba Thy warfare was not without valour Not numerous hast thou come to our house Where has thou left thy followers ?"

And Brian answers :

" I have left them with the foreigners, After having been cut down, 0 Mathgamhain, In hardship they followed me over every plain, Not the same as thy people."

And so he continues describing his warfare against the Danes and reproaching Mahon for his complacence.

Such dialogue passages were without doubt recited in dramatic style, possibly chanted, to the accompaniment of the harp, in the manner of the Welsh Penny llion chanting

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Otherwise for what purpose was the harper associated with the hardic suite ? Not merely, I would conclude, as instrumentalist, though he would be frequently called on to render strains of music, whilst even the bards of the company sat silent and entranced. And now comes my point of argument, for I have not been digressing far in thought from the harpers' festival, where Bunting gathered his great store of ancient melody.

Many of the bardic lays have come down to us, of indisputable authority in regard to their authors and period of composition. O'Curry mentions and quotes from over a dozen poems of MacLiag, this bard of King Brian Borou who died in 1015, and several by his predecessor MacLonan. Half a dozen other bards of the ninth and tenth century could be mentioned, whose personality is as well authenticated as that of the Elizabethan dramatists, and whose works have come down to us.

If the store of lyrical poetry has been preserved for over / a thousand years, what of the harp airs, which accompanied them, and which won for Ireland the fame of supremacy in music ? If the words of MacLonan and MacLiag survived, is it too daring to suggest that the strains played by Ilbrechtach, the harper, still vibrate upon the winds of the world ? Of the composers of the music played at Belfast, the names have only in a few instances been rescued. "Very ancient, composer unknown." "Remarkable, old." *$ Such are the notes affixed to a large majority. Reference to the " Autobiography " of Arthur O'Neill, now first published will show how far tradition and hearsay went.

Carolan, the modernist, poet, composer, and harper, was universally admired and fresh in the memory of all.

The name of Thomas Connellan, born about 1640, was still associated with his compositions " The Dawning of the Day," "Golden Star," "The Breach of Aughrim," "Molly St George," " Bonny Jean," and his younger brother William

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C*S

THE HARP IN ANCIENT IRELAND

Connellan got credit for "Lady Iveagh," "Saebh Kelly," "Molly M'Alpine." Cornelius Lyons, a contemporary of Carolan, was known as arranger of variations in modern style of such ancient airs as " Eileen Aroon." " The Coolin." Tradition was hazy as to which of two harpers Murphy had composed the fine song "Lord Mayo," and the figure of Rory Dall O'Cahan, harper to Hugh O'Neill, was gathering about it a fog of uncertainty.

Whatever was to be gleaned from tradition through the oldest harpers living Bunting set down for futurity.

Eugene O'Curry's investigations are worthy of extended repetition. He quotes an eight -line poem by Cormac MacCuilennain, King and Bishop of Cashel, who died in the year 903, which sing to an old air, now popularly known by the title " For Ireland I would not tell who she is," and adds

" I cannot say that these particular verses were written to that particular air. I adduce it only as an interesting fact, that a fragment of a lyric poem ascribed to a writer of the ninth century and actually preserved in an MS. book, so old as the year 1150, presents a peculiar structure of rhythm exactly corresponding with that of certain ancient Irish musical compositions, still popular and well known, though traditionally as of the highest antiquity, one of which is the air I have named. . . . Many such instances could be adduced of ancient lyric music still in existence in minutely exact agreement with forms of lyric poetry peculiar to the most ancient periods of our native literature."

He then goes on to refer to the four -lined Ossianic lays, of which a great number have been preserved and published. He had frequently heard his father sing these, and before the time of his birth there had lived in his native place — in County Clare — a school-master, Anthony O'Brien, who was famous for his knowledge of the Ossianic chants. It was this man's custom to row out into the bosom of the Shannon in a boat with some companions, whilst the labourers from the fields on either shore flocked down to listen. 0' Curry

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ANNALS OF THE IRISH HARPERS

assumes that the air to which the lays were sung, had been associated with the poetry since the time of its composition.

He then refers to the " Book of Ballymote," compiled from older books in the year 1391, and containing a tract on versification giving specimens of all the poetic measures, known to, or practised by the ancient Irish. From these he selects three of the largest and most complicated kind of verse. The first with a stanza of sixteen lines of an intricate character fits admirably to an air known as " Buachaill Gael dubh," or " Black Slender Boy." A second of eight lines goes to the air " Sean o Dwyer an Gleanna," and to this same air can be chanted the dialogue between Queen Meave and the Champion Ferdia, in the old Red Branch epic tale of the Tain l>o Cuailgne. The same subject is touched on and illustrated in a form more readily appreciated by the general reader, in Dr Sigerson's splendid volume, .Bards of the Gael and Gall. This book consists of specimen translations from Irish poetry, from the most ancient times till the end of the eighteenth century, in which the metre of the originals is marvellously preserved and the peculiarities of Gaelic verse construction are illustrated. In his introduction he writes of the poets of Ireland :

"Their artistic skill which enabled them to produce such admirable effects, in gold, silver and bronze work, and later in illuminations, was most fully displayed in the art of versification.

" They made it the most refined and delicate instrument of artistic structure, which the ingenuity of human intelli- gence could invent to charm without fatiguing the ear, by the modulation of sound. They avoided in Gaelic the tinkle of repeated words regularly recurring at the ends of lines. They had echoes and half echoes of broad and slight vowels, and of consonants, differentiated into classes so that it was not necessary even to repeat the same letter, and these echoing sounds, now full, now slender, rising, falling, replying, swelling, dying, like the echoes at Killarney — came

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THE HARP IN ANCIENT IRELAND

at varied intervals, not merely at the close, but within and between the lines. They constitute Word Music."

[\jpLVp ^'^ or*i?4**

And to this "Word Music" of the bards surely the string music of the harp kept rhyme and time, echoing, rising, falling with the intricate metre. And the race which treasured the poet's words for a thousand years, would as fondly preserve the marvellous melodies.

When the Belfast harpers faltered in their answers regard- ing the airs they played, and could not attribute them to the Connellans or Rory Dall himself, we may be sure they had come down from " beyond the mist of years."

Dr Grattan Flood in writing his " History of Irish Music," explored the old annals to some purpose and found notes in every century of famous harpers and makers of melody.

Thus in 1357 the death is recorded of " Donlevy O'Carroll, an excellent musician and a noble master of melody, the person that was best in his own art in Ireland," and in 1361 died " Magrath O'Finn, Chief Professor of Siol Murray in music and minstrelsy."

The fame of Carrol O'Daly, composer of " Eileen Aroon," is rescued from oblivion by the romance of his courtship by song of the lady of his heart. He died in 1405. " The Song of Blooming Deirdre " was composed in 1409 for the marriage of the sixth Earl of Desmond.

The air which Moore has made known in his " Rich and Rare Were the Gems She wore," is an old Irish one, to a song about " The Coming of Summer." It was copied and preserved by a Benedictine Monk of Reading about 1230.

Bunting recovered it from the singing of a Father O'Donnell, a priest in Belfast, and it was played for him by Hempson on the harp.

The investigation of the age of the music, is a subject that opens up wonderful possibilities. O'Curry's and Dr Sigerson's method of matching ancient metres with ancient

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ANNALS OF THE IRISH HARPERS

melodies is one that might profitably be pursued by the Gaelic revivalists in Ireland ; for as you shall see when we come to consider the Gaelic folk-songs collected by Bunting, many of the noblest, most heart-moving of these melodies, have been degraded by association with unworthy lyrics.

This will be a proper place to introduce Bunting's con- clusions with regard to the peculiar characteristics of Irish music, as he held that its peculiar excellence arose from the fact that 1;he harp was the instrument most practised and honoured, from a very early date,.

The 1840 volume published as The Ancient Music of Ireland has in the first chapter an account of the charac- teristics of Irish melody which we quote in full as follows : —

" Irish Melodies may be distinguished as to their minor characteristics, into two classes, those namely which are marked by the omission of the fourth and seventh tones of the diatonic scale or one of them, such as the air of 4 An Chuaichin Mhaiseach ' (' Bonny Cuckoo '), and those which, although also quite Irish in their structure, are not so characteristic, such as the air of ' Ciste no Stor ' ('Coffers nor stores').

" These subordinate distinctions have been often observed, and arguments derogatory to the antiquity of our best music have been very confidently advanced on their authority, for it has been urged the only assignable characteristics of genuine Irish melody being those of omission, we must refer the more elaborate class of airs, in which such omissions do not occur, to a less National and more modernised school. Having thus assumed that the airs of the first class are the more ancient, and seeing that such performances are more likely to have drawn their origin from a defective instrument, such as the ancient bagpipe which was incapable of properly producing either of the omitted tones, these reasoners go on to argue in like manner against the antiquity of the Irish harp ; for, say they, if the tunes proper to the pipes or to the six-stringed Cruit, be older than those which

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THE HARP IN ANCIENT IRELAND

can only be performed on the harp, we must of necessity conclude that the latter instrument is of proportionately more recent introduction here than the former; and thus loth the antiquity of our national instrument and the genuineness of those airs of which it is so peculiarly worthy are impugned on common grounds.

" These conclusions, gratifying as they may be to nations which have no genuine music of their own to boast of, spring from the fundamental error of considering the omission of the tones of the fourth and seventh to be the grand characteristic which really makes all Irish melody, and which truly distinguishes it from that of other countries. Now the fact is that these omissions are not the true tokens of our ancient and National Music. They occur in some airs, not in all ; and yet all are equally characteristic, all equally Irish, and some marked by the uniform presence of both these tones are the most Irish and the most ancient of all. The feature which in truth distinguishes all Irish melody, whether proper to the defective bagpipe or suited to the perfect harp, is not the negative omission, but the positive and emphatic presence of -^b^pariicular tone; and this tone is that of the sub-mediant, or major sixth ; in other words the tone of E in the scale of G. This it is that stamps the true Scotic character (for we Irish are the original Scoti) on every bar of the air in which it occurs so that the moment this tone is heard we exclaim ' That is an Irish melody.'

" If ever the symmetrical relation of musical vibrations should be determined, and a great step has already been i;aken in that direction by the inventor of the Kaleidophone (an instrument designed to make sound vibrations produce visible forms), we may expect to find some exact mode of accounting physically for this phenomenon; but in the present state of musical science, we are unable to do more jhan assert the fact, that peculiar and deeply delightful sensations attend the intonation of this chord when struck in a sequence of musical sounds, sensations which thrill 3very ear, and may truly be said to touch the * leading sinews ' of the Irish heart.

"There are many hundred genuine Irish airs, some of

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ANNALS OF THE IRISH HARPERS

/-""

them defective in the fourth and seventh, some supplying the place of the latter by a flat seventh, and others, again, perfect in all their diatonic intervals; yet let even an indifferent ear catch the strain of any one of them, whether performed by the best orchestra or by the meanest street musician, and it will at once feel thrilled by this searching tone of the emphatic major sixth, and in that touching and tingling sensation will recognise the proper voice of the Land of Song.

" The Irish school of Music is, therefore, not a school of omissions and affected deficiencies drawing its examples from the tone of a barbarian bagpipe, but a school of sweet and perfect harmony, proper to a harp of many strings and

,v \ suited to its intricate and florid character to cultivated ears

\V. ... and civilized assemblies."

Having illustrated this theory by two selected airs, " What is That to Him ? " and " Kitty Tyrrel," he proceeds :

" Such, in the Editor's opinion, is the grand characteristic of Irish melody, a characteristic which pervades alike the defective class of song and pipe tunes, such as the first in the above examples and the perfect harp lessons represented by the latter.

" Independently of these particular features, Irish Melody has also its own peculiarity of structure and arrangement, but this is more observable in the very old class of airs. These airs are for the most part in a major key and in triple time : the modulation of the first part of the melody may be said to consist of the common cadence ; the second part is generally an octave higher than the first ; it begins with the chord of the tonic and proceeds to the dominant, with its major concord; it then returns to the tonic from which it progresses to the tone of the sub-mediant with the major harmony of the sub-dominant, or to the sub-mediant with its minor concord ; but the harmony of this peculiar note is most frequently accompanied by the major concord of the sub-dominant ; the conclusion of the air is generally a repetition of the first part of the tune, with a little varia-

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THE HARP IN ANCIENT IRELAND

tion. This constitutes the structure and modulation of three-fourths of our song and harp airs, and the main features of such an arrangement — namely, their being principally in a major key and triple time, the rise of an octave in the second part and the repetition of the first gai-t at the conclusion with the modulation as above, are markedly observable in the composition of our most ancient melodies. Various harmonies dependent on the taste or science of the musician might be adapted to these old airs, bu^ it is presumed the above will be found the most correct and suitable. The most ancient, it may be observed, will be found more easily harmonised than those of a more modern date, a certain indication of the purity of their structure.

"It will be observed that the tones of the dominant and sub-dominant, with their corresponding concords and modulations above described, agree in a remarkable manner with the diapente and diatesseron of Cambrensis. Would it then be too much to surmise that that writer was himself acquainted with these peculiarities in the structure of Irish melody which have so long eluded the search of modern musicians, and that the famous account of Irish music in the twelfth century, which he has given us, is actually a scientific description of the modulation of a genuine Irish tune as preserved to the present day ?

" Irish song music being thus carefully adjusted to one staadard of arrangement, a conjecture may be hazarded as to the character of the original melody on which the whole school has been founded.

" The Young Man's Dream and the air of ' The Green Woods of Truagha' might be suggested as answering more nearly to the Editor's conception of such a standard than any others with which he is acquainted. The latter melody is of great antiquity, as is proved both by its structure, and by the fact of its being known by so many different names in different parts of the country. Thus it is known in Ulster as 'The Green Woods of Truagha/ in Leinster as 'Edmund of the Hill,' in Connaught as 'Colonel O'Gara,' and in Munster as * More no Beg,' with a variety of other aliases."

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ANNALS OF THE IRISH HARPERS

Examples of songs then follow and he concludes :

" These specimens may be considered as the skeletons of most of our song airs. But it would be impossible to assign any similar model for harp tunes which are strongly resembling the vigorous productions of the modern German school, but which from the predominance of the major sixth or sub-mediant with its suitable harmony still sound equally Irish with the most characteristic of the defective class.

"From these considerations, grounded on the structure of the airs themselves, we may conclude that the com- parative antiquity of the two classes of airs (both being now proved equally genuine) may be determined by the comparative antiquity of the instruments to which they are adapted, and if, as shall presently appear, the harp and the bagpipe be both found to be of immemorial use in Ireland, we shall be entitled to claim for the ancient Irish school of Music the credit of a very elaborate, artful and refined style of composition."

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CHAPTEK XI

THE HARP FESTIVAL OF 1792. CONTEMPORARY DOCUMENTS AND DESCRIPTIONS

HAVING given a general survey of the life of Edward Banting, it remains for us to enter into a detailed account with regard to his work and achievement, in preserving a faithful record of The Ancient Music of Ireland. It will be seen, that he worked on lines of strict archaeological research, sought as far as possible to ascertain the antiquity of the musical forms and instruments, and that, beyond any worker in the same sphere, before or since, he has maintained the links uniting our national music with the native language.

The circular issued a few months previous to the Harp Festival, namely, at the end of the year 1791, for the purpose of soliciting funds, gives us in brief an insight into the minds of the organisers _o£ that historic gathering.

It has been reprinted in Bunting's 1840 volume, but one of the original circulars, yellowed with age, lies before us as wo write, and seems to bring us into intimate touch with the enthusiasts who drafted, issued and dispersed them amongst the well-to-do and enlightened men of town and country, from whom financial support was expected.

"BELFAST, December 1791.

" Some inhabitants of Belfast, feeling themselves interested in everything which relates to the honour, as well as the prosperity of their country, propose to open a subscription, which they intend to apply in attempting to revive and perpetuate the ancient Music and Poetry of Ireland. They

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ANNALS OF THE IKISH HARPERS

are solicitous to preserve from oblivion the few fragments which have been permitted to remain, as monuments of the refined taste and genius of their ancestors.

"In order to carry this project into execution, it must appear obvious to those acquainted with the situation of this country that it . will be necessary to assemble the Harpers, those descendants of our Ancient Bards, who are at present almost exclusively possessed of all that remains of the Music Poetry and oral traditions of Ireland.

" It is proposed that the Harpers should be induced to assemble at Belfast (suppose on the 1st July next) by the distribution of such prizes as may seem adequate to the subscribers ; and that a person well versed in the language and antiquities of this nation should attend, with a skilful musician to transcribe and arrange the most beautiful and interesting parts of their knowledge.

"An undertaking of this kind will undoubtedly meet the approbation of men of refinement and erudition in every country. And when it is considered how intimately the spirit and character of a people are connected with their national Poetry and Music, it is presumed that the Irish patriot and politician will not deem it an object unworthy his patronage and protection."

By the spring of the following year the project had received substantial support, as we may see from the follow- t'ing report in the Belfast Newsletter . —

" At a meeting of several subscribers to the scheme for assembling the Harpers by public advertisement in Belfast, the 23rd April, 1792, it was agreed; 'That a Committee of five subscribers be appointed to forward and receive sub- scriptions to circulate by advertisement in different news- papers and other ways the period and objects of the meeting, and to regulate and conduct the subordinate parts of the scheme ; that Mr H. Joy, Mr Robt. Bradshaw, Mr Robert Siinins, Doctor Jas. Macdonnell, be that Committee. That a Committee be now appointed as judges for appreciating the merits of the different performers on the Irish Harps, who may appear at Belfast on Tuesday the 10th day of

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THE HARP FESTIVAL OF 1792

July next. That the following ladies and gentlemen be appointed to that Committee : — Eev. Mr Meade, Eev. Mr Vance, Mr Eainey Maxwell, Mr Eobert Bradshaw, Mr Henry Joy, Doctor Jas. MacDonnell, Mr Thos. Morris Jones.

"Honble. Mrs Meade, Honble. Miss de Courcy, Mrs M'Kenzie, Miss Catherine Clarke, Miss Grant, Miss Bristow, Mrs John Clarke, Mrs Kennedy.

"That the premiums be adjudged in proportion to the fund raised, in the following proportions : 1st premium

£ l 2nd, ditto ; 3rd, ditto ; 4th, ditto ; 5th, ditto ; with

smaller gratuities to others in aid of their expenses. That the airs to be performed previous to the adjudication of the premiums be confined to the native music of the country — the music of Ireland. In order to revive obsolete airs, it is an instruction to the judges on this occasion, not to be solely governed in their decisions by the degree of execution or taste of the several performers, but independent of these circumstances, to consider the person entitled to additional claim, who shall produce airs not to be found in any public collection, and at the same time deserving of preference, by their intrinsic excellence. It is recommended \ to any harper who is in possession of scarce compositions to have them reduced to notes : that the Eev. Mr Andrew Bryson2 of Dundalk be requested to assist, as a person versed in the language and antiquities of the nation, and that Mr William Weare, Mr Edward Bunting and Mr John Sharpe be requested to attend as practical musicians. That notification of the meeting on 10th July, and an invitation to the harpers be published in the two Belfast papers and in the National Journal and in one of the Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Kilkenny, Gal way, Sligo and Deny Papers."

1 No sum is mentioned.

2 Rev. Andrew Bryson was minister at the Presbyterian Church ol Fouvtowns, between Dundalk and Newry. He was succeeded in the care of the same church by his son and grandson. The Presbyterian community bein^ sparse in this district, the Brysons had leisure for study and literary work. It was to the minister Bryson of the day that Charlotte Bronte's Irish Uncle brought a copy of " Jane Eyre " for inspection, tied up in a red cotton handkerchief.

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. ANNALS OF THE IRISH HARPERS

The first circular would lead us to believe that those inspiring the enterprise were as much concerned about the preservation of ancient Gaelic poetry and tradition as about music, and that they expected to find in th« harpers, custodians of the"l'^!ics"'~'6t~iancient traditional literature.

They were assuming that the harpers were the successors of the Irish professional bards, and in this respect were destined to be disappointed.

O'Curry and other writers, who have since thrown light on the customs and educational systems of ancient Ireland, make it plain, that the bard was distinct from the harper. Just as in the present day, a lyrical poet is rarely found to be a singer of his own compositions, the professional poets of the bardic schools were concerned with the making of poetry, and with the recital of famous poems and tales, handed down from previous generations.

To perfect the Belfast Festival, the country Shanachies should also have been summoned to recount Ossianic lays and hero tales.

On page 193 you will read in Arthur O'Neill's " Autobio- graphy " how the advertisement took effect. He happened to be laid up with rheumatism, after a bad wetting, at the house of a friend and patron, Captain Westenrae, of Lough Sheelin. His fingers being stift he was unable to play, and to pass the time, desired to be read to. The newspaper was brought, and it happened to be the Belfast Newsletter, and in its columns stood the following advertisement: —

" National Music of Ireland.

" A respectable body of the inhabitants of Belfast having published a plan for reviving the ancient music of this country, and the project having met with such support and approbation as must insure success to the undertaking; performers on the Irish Harp are requested to assemble in this town on the 10th day of July next, when a considerable

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THE HARP FESTIVAL OF 1792

sum will be distributed in premiums in proportion to their merits.

"It being the intention of the Committee that every performer shall receive some premium, it is hoped that no harper will decline attending on account of his having been unsuccessful on any former occasion.

"ROBERT BRADSHAW,

Secretary and Treasurer. "BELFAST, 26J/& April 1792."

A letter from Dr MacDonnell followed, urging O'Neill to be present in Belfast without fail. The doctor had a special interest in this harper, who had spent some time in his father's house in Glenarrif, giving lessons on his instrument to the boys of the family. We may be sure, however, that he sent out many letters of invitation and enquiry to different districts, and through the medium of the advertise- ments in the other papers mentioned got into communication with harpers and their patrons. We read, for example, in Bunting's anecdotes of one O'Shea, a County Kerry harper almost eighty years of age, "an enthusiast in everything connected with Irish feeling ; extreme debility alone pre- vented him attending the Belfast meeting."

Even in our own day of railway travelling the journey from Kerry to Belfast was found to be a difficult matter, by a blind piper who turned up as a competitor at afeis ceoil gathering in the Ulster capital. He came all the way from Darrynane, the seat of Daniel O'Connell's descendants in Kerry. Having mislaid the paper bearing the address of the people in Dublin, who were to be wired to to meet and assist him on his return, the Belfast Committee1 were for a time in a dilemma what to do with him. Ultimately a scrap of paper was found with the Dublin address, and he

1 Dr Sinclair Boyd, first President of Belfast Gaelic League, deserves to be mentioned here, for his efforts to revive the Irish pipes, and his thoughtful attention to the old pipers.

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ANNALS OF THE IEISH HARPERS

was put in the charge of John Cash, a Wicklow piper, who had the gift of sight.

The Committee at this same/m had to deal with another difficulty, which we find referred to in Harper O'Neill's account of the Granard competitions. The expense and trouble of travelling far, to attend competitions, came very hard on the musicians who were not prize winners. A subscription for . their benefit was necessary, so that even the unsuccessful lost nothing by attendance.

'No uncertainty as to this matter of expenses stood in the way of the harpers in 1792, yet only ten attended. Their names are given in the newspaper reports of the day with that of a Welshman, Williams. This Welsh harper Bunting describes (1840 vol.) as

" a good performer, who died on shipboard shortly after this date. His execution was very great ; the contrast between the sweet expressive tones of the Irish instrument and the bold martial ones of the Welsh had a pleasing effect, as marking the difference of character between the two Nations."

The scene of the gathering was the ball-room of the

O O -•'•»~— '";«^~_^ +.. .^_iuu--|ur-mrrj " JOTI>

Exchange Rooms, a building which stood at the junction of Donegal Street and North Street on the site of the present Belfast Bank.

The names of the Irish harpers present, with age and place of birth, we give from Bunting's list (1840 vol.) in preference to that in the Newsletter report, which differs slightly : —

" Denis Hempson, blind, from Co. Derry, aged 97 years or more, exponent of the old style of playing with long crooked nails.

Arthur O'Neill, blind, from Co. Tyrone, aged 58, after- wards instructor to the Belfast Harp Society.

Charles Fanning from Co. Cavan, aged 56. The most brilliant performer, but a modernist in style. 102

THE HARP FESTIVAL OF 1792

Daniel Black, blind, from Co. Deny, aged 75. 'Charles Byrne,1 from Co. Leitrim, aged 80, had the use of his eyes, and as a boy had acted as guide to his blind uncle, a harper contemporary with Carolan. Hugh Higgins, blind, from Co. Mayo, aged 55. 'Patrick Quin, blind, from Co. Armagh, aged 47, one of

the youngest harpers. 'William Carr, from Co. Armagh, aged 15, the only

juvenile competitor.

Rose Mooney, blind, from Co. Meath, aged 52. James Duncan, from Co. Down, aged 45."

The character of the music played by them will be dealt with in the next chapter.

Besides Bunting's description and references in the pre- faces to his publications, contemporary allusions of the festival will be found in Wolfe Tone's " Autobiography," Arthur O'Neill's " Life" (which is now printed for the first time in full), the files of the Northern Star and the Belfast Newsletter.

The Newsletter report was reprinted in a book, now scarce, " Belfast Politics," issued by Henry Joy in 1794, and from it we quote : —

" National Music of Ireland, 13th July 1792.

"The number of Harpers that were present in our Exchange rooms on Wednesday last, and who are to continue to assemble in the same place for three days longer were ten, a sufficient proof of the declining state of that simple but expressive instrument and of the propriety of holding our every lure to prevent the original music of this country from being lost. As a principal motive in this undertaking' was to revive some of the most ancient airs now nearly obsolete, their dates and authors perhaps for centuries unknown, pains will be taken to reduce to notes such of those that have been played on this occasion as may lead to a general publication of the best tunes. No one that remembers the exquisite finger of Dominic will hesitate to confess the capability of the Harp of Ireland, and how

1 Sometimes called Bereen, see O'Neill's "Diary."

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ANNALS OF THE IRISH HARPERS

worthy it is of preservation. By such means alone can our... National airs be saved from oblivion. Wales and Ireland have a National Music, while England has none ; if she had, it would not, like that of the two first countries, be only in the hands of a few itinerant minstrels."

A list of the harpers present follows, but differs slightly, as to age of performers, from that preserved by Bunting. "Dominic" here referred to was a harper not long passed away, whose surname was Mungan. He was in the custom of visiting the north during the Assize Circuits. A full account of him will be found in O'Neill's "Life."

We have already quoted in an introductory biography Bunting's account of the impression made on him by the proceedings and particularly by Hempson's playing. Wolfe Tone picked out Fanning as the best performer, and he was the first prize-winner through his rendering of "The Coolin" with elaborate variations.

In addition to the newspaper descriptions there is very fortunately available a letter written by a Belfast lady at that time in a gossipy and familiar fashion to a friend. This letter was published in that admirable publication, "Old Belfast," by Mr R. M. Young. His father, the Right Hon. Robert Young, has made a special study of all matters relating to Bunting and the Musical Festival and published in the Ulster Archaeological Journal and in the Irish Folk-Song Journal, vol. 2, 1905, a great deal of information, which has been a guide to us in our research and our study of the Bunting's manuscript.

The letter we have referred to goes on as follows : —

" And so my friend did not wish to come to the review, neither did I, and yet I went. We had a very agreeable day ; indeed the review was over by three o'clock. When the Volunteers came into town, they were joined by the Gentle- men of the Town and neighbourhood, with the emblematick

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THE HAKP FESTIVAL OF 1792

Paintings and plays. They then marched through the prin- cipal streets ; this march terminated in Linen Hall Street, where the Volunteers fired three great feus de joys. They then went into the Hall as many as it would hold, and made their declaration, held their debates, and settled the affairs of the Nation ; it was eight o'clock before they got to their dinners. There were a number of publick dinners through the town, but the grandest was the celebration Banquet at the Donegal arms ; there they had all the grand toasts, celebrated songs, etc., and paid half a guinea each man. There were a number of Dublin gentlemen here; among the rest was the celebrated James Napper Tandy, that I suppose you often heard of. I suppose there never was such a number oj, .people in Belfast at once; the grand KeviBW wajr~n<5Ehing to it 7". . ; and so you must have an account of the Harpists too. I was hearing them one day. I like them very much. The Harp is an agreeable soft musick very like the notes of a Harpsichord; would be very pleasant in a small room. There were eight men and one woman all either blind or lame, and all old but two men. Figure to yourself this group, indifferently dressed, sitting on a stage erected for them in one end of the Exchange Ball Eoom, and the ladies and the gentlemen of the first fashion in Belfast and its vicinity looking on and listening attentively, and you will have an idea of how they looked.

" You can't imagine anything sweeter than the musick ; every one played separately. The money that was drawn during the four days that they were here was divided among them according to their merit. The best performers got ten guineas, and the worst two and the rest accordingly. Now how do you. like the poor old Harpers ? "

The only point calling for remark in this letter is the reference to " the celebrated James Napper Tandy," the only one of the Dublin visitors mentioned, though they included Wolfe Tone, John Keogh, and Whitley Stokes. Tandy was, however, immensely in favour with the populace. Tone, in his " Diary," refers to him as " The Tribune," likely thinking of