Towards the Potential Role of a Neglected Eighteenth-Century Harper in Cultural Tourism in the Oriel Region
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Towards the Potential Role of a Neglected Eighteenth-Century Harper in Cultural Tourism in the Oriel Region Sylvia Crawford December 2018 Supervisors: Dr Daithí Kearney & Dr Adèle Commins Masters by Research DECLARATION I hereby certify that this material, which I now submit for assessment on the programme of study leading to the award of Masters by Research is entirely my own work, and that I have exercised reasonable care to ensure that the work is original, and does not to the best of my knowledge breach any law of copyright, and has not been taken from the work of others save and to the extent that such work has been cited and acknowledged within the text of my work. Signed: _____________________________________________________________ Student ID no:__________________________________________ Date:___________________________________ Supervisor Name:______________________________________________________________ Supervisor Signature:___________________________________________________________ Date:__________________________________ PGF014 Declaration by Author & Supervisor Acknowledgements I would firstly like to express my sincere thanks to my supervisors, Dr Adèle Commins and Dr Daithí Kearney, in the Department of Creative Arts, Media and Music at Dundalk Institute of Technology, for their help, guidance and patience throughout this project. I also want to acknowledge IoTI (Institutes of Technology Ireland) for funding this Master's project. I would like to thank Simon Chadwick, who was the first person to draw my attention to the eighteenth-century harper, Patrick Quin, and who encouraged me to explore Quin’s repertory on a copy of the harp that Quin played. I would like to thank him for his continued support throughout this process. Special thanks also to the Historical Harp Society of Ireland (HHSI) for the extended loan of an HHSI Student Otway harp, which has been very important for my research. I am indebted to Siobhan Armstrong, the founder of the HHSI and Scoil na gCláirseach, for her expertise and encouragement over the last number of years. Thanks also to Ann Heymann whose hugely influential work has inspired the revival of the early Irish harp in Ireland and in the US. I owe a particular debt of gratitude to Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin for her invaluable research on the musical heritage of Oriel, and for bringing this region to life for me through her wonderful book, A Hidden Ulster – people, songs and traditions of Oriel and recent website, Oriel Arts – a tradition renewed. I am also very grateful to her, in a personal capacity, for her encouragement of my work and for the opportunities she has given me, which is a great honour. A special word of thanks to my close friend and historical harp maker, Natalie Surina (Ériú Harps), for agreeing to make me a fully decorated copy of the Castle Otway harp, once owned by Patrick Quin, and now housed in Trinity College, Dublin. Thanks to Ellen O’Flaherty and Trinity College Dublin for granting permission to measure and extensively photograph the Castle Otway harp (including internal photographs). I owe a very special thank you to the owner (who wishes to remain anonymous) of a very important and beautiful oil painting, a portrait of the blind harper, Patrick Quin, which I had the honour of identifying as such. Permission was granted to photograph this most significant piece of evidence, for research purposes. Thanks also to Frank Bunting, a descendant of Edward Bunting, for drawing to my attention a newspaper article on Quin, in the Irish News, and to Dr Eamon Phoenix, the author of this article, for pointing me in the direction of the original article on which his was based. Thanks too to Fintan Mullan and William Roulston of the Ulster Historical Foundation for their communication regarding Colin Johnston Robb. Finally, I would like to thank Brenda Malloy, Tom Morrow and Aoibheann Devlin, for their help and encouragement, and my family and friends for their continued support throughout this process. I would not be playing this exquisite instrument and doing this research to unearth its music and have it heard once again in the region, if it were not for the tradition bearers of the past, like Patrick Quin, who carried the traditions, and the collectors who preserved the music of the old harpers from extinction. Abstract The aim of this research is to unearth some under-explored aspects of the musical heritage of the Oriel region, focusing on the harp tradition, with the purpose of investigating the potential of Irish traditional music in cultural tourism in the region. The ancient kingdom of Oriel, which includes parts of counties Armagh, Monaghan and Louth, has a rich cultural and musical heritage. There is a significant local repertoire of song and instrumental music in the Oriel region. But the harp tradition of the Oriel region has, until very recently, been largely ignored. I engaged in fieldwork during the summer of 2016 in order to find out what Irish traditional music was available for tourists in the region. I visited museums and tourist places, and attended traditional music events, concerts and festivals. I also attended some local events which took place outside the summer tourist season, and other events that focused on the music of south-east Ulster, but which took place outside the region. Initial fieldwork was carried out by me as an outsider and onlooker, but as my involvement increased, the fieldwork took on more of an ‘insider’s’ perspective, a participant observer. An important focus of my research has been to illuminate the life and legacy of one eighteenth-century harper, Patrick Quin, who forms the case study in this dissertation. My research through newspaper archives has uncovered numerous articles, many of which have not been quoted elsewhere, which demonstrate that Quin was famous during his lifetime. However, he has been largely neglected in the story of the harp in Ireland, and in the histories of the places where he lived. I have also discovered a previously unknown yet important portrait of a blind harper, which I have identified as Patrick Quin. This thesis sets out a number of recommendations; the most significant is the proposal of a sculpture of Patrick Quin. Such a monument would draw attention to the musical heritage of the region and provide a foundation for future cultural tourism initiatives in the Oriel region. Table of Contents Table of Contents List of Figures ...................................................................................................... iii List of Tables ........................................................................................................ v Chapter 1 ............................................................................................................... 1 Introduction and Overview ................................................................................... 1 Background to the research project ......................................................................................... 1 Key research questions ........................................................................................................... 1 Aims & Objectives .................................................................................................................. 2 Personal background and motivation: '...an outsider of the insider sort' ................................ 3 Challenges of the project ........................................................................................................ 5 Structure of dissertation .......................................................................................................... 7 Benefits of the research ........................................................................................................... 9 Chapter 2 ............................................................................................................. 10 Methodology ....................................................................................................... 10 Overview ............................................................................................................................... 10 Literature overview ............................................................................................................... 10 Fieldwork / Ethnography ...................................................................................................... 12 Case Study - ‘near the Blue Ston’ (my personal connection to Patrick Quin) ..................... 14 Archival research .................................................................................................................. 16 Performance practice ............................................................................................................ 17 Applied Ethnomusicology principles .................................................................................... 22 Chapter 3 ............................................................................................................. 23 Literature Review ................................................................................................ 23 Part I – Niche tourism ......................................................................................... 24 The rise of cultural tourism in Ireland .................................................................................. 24 Music tourism ......................................................................................................................