Rose Mooney (born c. 1740) was an itinerant Irish harpist during the 18th century, a time when the itinerant tradition was dying out. [1]
Rose Mooney came from a poor background in County Meath. Like many harpists of the time, she was blind. Mooney learned how to play from Thady Elliott. With her maid Mary for a companion, she traveled Ireland for different harpist competitions. [1]
The memoirs of harpist Arthur O'Neill contain records of Mooney's experience at the Granard Festivals. She was the only woman to compete in the Granard festival of 1781. Third place and five guineas went to Mooney for her rendering of Planxty Burke. [2] She continued to participate, and won third place in the 2nd and 3rd Granard festivals of 1782 and 1783. This time her reward was four guineas. [3] She participated in the last two festivals of 1784 and 1785 as well, but it is unclear where she placed. From the second festival, she was not the only woman competitor, as Catherine Martin also participated. [2]
In 1792, founding Belfast Reading Society members Henry Joy McCracken and Dr. James McDonnel called on the Harpers Assembly in Belfast to revive the Ancient tradition of the harp. The festival ran from 11 July to 14 July 1792. [4] Mooney, then 52, participated. She rehearsed with the rest of the harpers in public until the final show in the assembly rooms. 15 judges presided. [4] Edward Bunting attended the festival to transcribe the harp music into a manuscript to preserve it. [4] The result of Mooney's participation in the festival is unknown, as it seems the judges awarded only a first and second place, and no information about the rest of the participants is available. [5]
According to Arthur O'Neill, Mooney "...pledged her harp, petticoat, and cloak." [6] He made this statement to expose Mooney's maid, Mary, who seems to have taken advantage of her mistress' blindness by pawning her items to buy herself alcohol. [6] Mary led Mooney into seedy establishments that were "inseparable for poor blind harpers." [6]
The date and circumstances of Mooney's death are unclear. According to O'Neill, she died during the French invasion of Killala in 1798 as a victim of drink. [7] However, Edward Bunting notes Planxty Charles Coot as having been taken down from "Rose Mooney the harper in 1800." [7]
Turlough O'Carolan was a blind Celtic harper, composer and singer in Ireland whose great fame is due to his gift for melodic composition.
Irish music is music that has been created in various genres on the island of Ireland.
Granard is a town in the north of County Longford, Ireland, and has a traceable history going back to 236 CE. It is situated just south of the boundary between the watersheds of the Shannon and the Erne, at the point where the N55 national secondary road and the R194 regional road meet. It is 20 km north-east of Longford town. The barony of Granard is named for the town. The town is also in the civil parish of Granard.
Alice Letitia Milligan [pseud. Iris Olkyrn] was an Irish writer and activist in Ireland's Celtic Revival; an advocate for the political and cultural participation of women; and a Protestant-unionist convert to the cause of Irish independence. She was at the height of her renown at the turn of the 20th century when in Belfast, with Anna Johnston, she produced the political and literary monthly The Shan Van Vocht (1896–1899), and when in Dublin the Irish Literary Theatre's performed "The Last Feast of the Fianna” (1900), Milligan's interpretation of Celtic legend as national drama.
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Thomas Connellan was an Irish harp player and composer.
"Give Me Your Hand" is a tune from early 17th century Ireland by Rory Dall O'Cahan. It is one of the most widely recorded pieces of Irish traditional music.
Edward Bunting was an Irish musician and folk music collector active in Belfast.
The Belfast Harp Festival, called by contemporary writers The Belfast Harpers Assembly, 11–14 July 1792, was a three-day musical and patriotic event organised in Belfast, Ireland, by leading members of the local Society for Promoting Knowledge : Dr. James MacDonnell, Robert Bradshaw, Henry Joy, and Robert Simms. Edward Bunting, a young classically trained organist, was commissioned to notate the forty tunes performed by ten harpists attending, work that was to form the major part of his General Collection of the Ancient Irish Music (1796). The venue of the contest was in The Assembly Room on Waring Street in Belfast which was opened as a market house in 1769.
Dominic Ó Mongáin, or Dominic Mungan, was an Irish harper and poet, born around 1715 in County Tyrone. The poem and air An raibh tú ag an gCarraig?, translated by Walsh as Have you been at Carrick?, has been attributed to him.
Patrick Byrne or Pádraig Dall Ó Beirn was the last noted exponent in Ireland of the historical Gaelic harp and the first Irish traditional musician to be photographed.
Charles Mongan Warburton was a 19th-century Anglican bishop who served two Irish Dioceses.
Hugh Higgins of Tyrawley was a blind Irish harper, 1737-after 1791.
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Charles Fanning, Irish harper, born Foxford, County Mayo, 1736, died after 1792.
Arthur O'Neill was an Irish harper, a virtuoso player of the Irish harp or cláirseach: he was active during the final decades of its unbroken instrumental tradition in the later 18th and very early 19th century. He was closely associated with Edward Bunting, and the Belfast Harp Society's ultimately unsuccessful attempt to preserve the instrument, attending the Belfast Harper's Assembly and serving as the Society's harp tutor until 1813. He is best known for his lively and humorous memoir, collected by Bunting, which contained many reminiscences of famous harpers and of the environment in which they played.
The Coolin, or The Coolun, is an Irish air often characterised as one of the most beautiful in the traditional repertoire.
Charlotte Olivia Milligan Fox was an Irish composer, folk music collector and writer.
The Belfast Harp Society (1808-1813) and its successor, the Irish Harp Society (1819-1839), were philanthropic associations formed in the town of Belfast, Ireland, for the purpose of sustaining the music and tradition of itinerant Irish harpists, and secondarily, of promoting the study of the Irish language, history, and antiquities. For its patronage, the original society drew upon a diminishing circle of veterans of the patriotic and reform politics of the 1780s and '90s, among them several unrepentant United Irishmen. In its sectarian division, Belfast became increasingly hostile to Protestant interest in distinctive Irish culture. The society reconvened as the Irish Harp Society in 1819 only as a result of a large and belated subscription raised from expatriates in India. Once that source was exhausted, the new society ceased its activity.