THE “last of the great Irish harpers”, like the Last of the Mohicans, is a somewhat disputed title. More than one man has been honoured with it. But as well as being among the leading contenders, Patrick Byrne has another claim to fame. He was the first Irish harper – indeed the first Irish traditional musician – ever photographed.
The picture shows him in the other-worldly garb he wore for the occasion: a costumed ball in Edinburgh about 1845, when he played the elderly musician from Walter Scott's epic poem The Lay of the Last Minstrel. His harp is wire-strung, as Irish harps had been for centuries, and he plucked it with his fingernails in the old style – a style that, if it wasn't dead already, would die with him.
After Byrne’s demise, it was said that he had passed away “unwept, unhonored, and unsung”. Not quite true. He is buried under a stately headstone in my home town of Carrickmacross, albeit in the paupers’ cemetery – a paradox that sums up his life. And this weekend he will be belatedly celebrated in the third annual Patrick Byrne Weekend, organised by Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann.
Like bards, harpers were so inextricably linked with the cause of Gaelic Ireland that, during the reign of Elizabeth I, they were forced to decommission their strings in return for pardons. Repression increased after the Battle of Kinsale, when the Queen herself issued an order “to hang the harpers wherever found, and destroy their instruments”. That the greatest harper-composer of all, Turlough Carolan, flourished a century later suggests the policy was not a complete success. But harpers were a dying breed by the time Edward Bunting tried to revive them with a festival in Belfast in 1792. Of the 10 veterans who turned up, six were blind. One was 97, another 80 and a third in his 70s.
The United Irishmen were enthusiasts – although some more than others. After the first Belfast performance, Wolfe Tone noted that three of the harpers were good, but seven “execrable”. By the third night of their performances, his diary was unconsciously echoing Queen Elizabeth: “The harpers again. Strum, strum, and be hanged.” Thirty years later, the Belfast Harp Society was founded in another revival attempt. It was here that Padraig Dall Ó Beirn – as he had been born in south Co Monaghan – came in. Blind since birth, he studied with the society, and graduated with 60 tunes before moving to London, where he was soon playing for the nobility. Now playing as Patrick Byrne, his fame was assured by the late 1830s, when he was entertaining Queen Victoria and serving as official Irish harper to Prince Albert.
While his and the old harping style in general is these days extinct, we have been left a strong flavour of it in the description, from 1870, of a writer who remembered Byrne's version of Brian Boru's March: "After quaffing a generous tumbler of punch, he would say: 'Now, ladies and gentlemen, I am going to play you the celebrated march of the great King Brian to the held of Clontarf, when he gave the Danes such a drubbing. The Irish army is far off, but if you listen attentively you will hear the faint sound of their music.'
“Then his fingers would wander over the upper range of strings with so delicate a touch that you might fancy it was fairy music heard from a distance. Anything more fine, more soft and delicate than this performance, it is impossible to conceive. ‘They are coming nearer!’ And the sound increased in volume. ‘Now here they are!’ And the music rolled loud and full.
“Thus the march went on; the fingers of the minstrel’s right hand wandering farther down the bass range. . .Then the music became stronger and louder, and there is a deeper rumbling of the bass, with an occasional harmonic third with the right hand, producing a remarkable effect. ‘Now they’re at it — Irish and Danes!’
“The music suddenly changes to the middle range; it is hard and harsh — Clang! Clang! Like the fall of sword or axe on armour, the blows showering thickly; and that harmonic third aforesaid comes frequently, but on a higher string, which gives it a sterner and more fitting effect.” And so on through the battle, until the Irish win. Then: “Immediately the music assumes a merry, lightsome character, as if it were played for dancers. . .But this abruptly ceases; there is another shriek and discord, jangling and confusion in the upper bass strings. The harper explains as usual: ‘They have found the old King murdered in his tent.’”
A member of the Church of Ireland by the end of his life, Patrick Byrne was sufficiently honoured in his own town that, in 1855, the residents awarded him “a purse of gold”. Some time after he died in Dundalk in 1863, he was reburied in Carrickmacross. And although vandals have attempted to edit the gravestone’s inscription — “Harper to HRH the late Prince Consort” — enough remains to remind us that the British monarchy recovered from its aversion to Irish harp playing, in the end.
Féile Patrick Byrne opens on Friday with a lecture by Fintan Vallely, and will include workshops in a range of traditional instruments, along with concerts and other events. Further information at wwwcomhaltas.ie, or from 042-9662850 and 087-2396665.