Questions? Comments? -K. E. Dennis
Poetry of Ireland (Irish poets writing in English)
So I tiptoe back in to s.c.i., hacking my way thru all the usual racialist cross-postings & finding a few, a very few treasures in the wilderness, which is more or less the topic of this tale:
For a Rare Discarded Harp, a Chance to Sing Again
By COLIN MOYNIHAN
New York Times, August 9, 2009
With many snips:
...Ms. Finch... discovered ...a brass plaque bearing the name of the instrument’s maker, John Egan, and an address on Dawson Road in Dublin.
…Egan invented a completely new romantic type of Irish harp, which was very successful, and which formed the basis of all subsequent revivals.Egan accomplished that… by combining the tuning mechanisms and pliable strings featured on pedal harps popular in Europe with a size and shape that strongly evoked the …traditional Irish harp — or clàrsach — which is a symbol of the Irish state and is associated in legend with Brian Boru, a storied Irish king who ruledin the 10th and 11th centuries.
Egan called his new harps portables, and Ms. Hurrell, who is researching a book about Egan and his instruments, said that she had cataloged fewer than 50 that still existed. [...]
...so in honour of yer man Egan & the aptly named Ms. Finch, who is giving his harp a chance to sing again, I thought it only right to post this, by Willie Yeats:
The Harp of Aengus
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The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats
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Edain came out of Midhir's hill, and lay
Beside young Aengus in his tower of glass,
Where time is drowned in odour-laden winds
And Druid moons, and murmuring of boughs,
And sleepy boughs, and boughs where apples made
Of opal and ruby and pale chrysolite
Awake unsleeping fires; and wove seven strings,
Sweet with all music, out of his long hair,
Because her hands had been made wild by love.
When Midhir's wife had changed her to a fly,
He made a harp with Druid apple-wood
That she among her winds might know he wept;
And from that hour he has watched over none
But faithful lovers.