Sleeve Notes

Janet Harbison

O'Neill's Harper is an album of Irish harp music and song that, while rooted in the history of the harp in Ireland brings the harp and its music well into the 20th century. Janet Harbison's contemporary, yet traditional style is arresting and her own innovative compositions prove that Irish harper-composers are far from dead. Although Janet features on at least a dozen other artistes' albums, this is her first solo contribution to the published repertoire. While most of the instrumental pieces were chosen for their historical relevance, some were chosen to honour the interests and patronage of the present Lord O'Neill, and others simply because Janet liked them!

Janet Harbison was born in Dublin and was first introduced to the harp in Sion Hill Convent under the tuition of Máirín Ferriter. Most of her influences, however, were gleaned from piping, fiddling and fluting friends, and while she is also a well known classical pianist, her style of harping is deeply rooted in the folk tradition. After winning every major harp competition in Ireland and abroad between 1979 and 1981, she embarked on an international performance career. Composition and arrangement for various media also featured prominently in her activities, and from about 1980, she became a much sought after teacher.

In 1984, Janet came to live in Belfast where she conducted a special study into the Bunting Manuscript Collection of music transcribed from the harpers at the Belfast Harpers Assembly of 1792. From 1986 to 1994 she was the Curator of Music at the Ulster Folk & Transport Museum where she managed and developed the museum's various music collections along with an extensive education and music festival programme.

Throughout the years, Janet has pioneered performance in the traditional repertoire and teaching in the age-old oral method. In 1985 she founded Cláirseóirí na hÉireann the Irish Harpers' Association, the Glencolmcille Harp Festival and in 1992, she launched the Belfast Harp Orchestra which has achieved world-wide acclaim in its own right as well as in the company of the Chieftains. Also in 1992 she directed the World Harp Festival, Belfast celebrating the Bicentenary of the Belfast Harpers' Assembly.

Now Janet has returned to her life as a freelance performer, composer, lecturer, teacher and writer on the subjects of Ireland's cultural heritage, the many voices of folk-music in Ulster today, and of course, on the illustrious tradition of Ireland's national emblem, the harp.

Programme Notes

1. Marcaíocht Uí Néill - O'Neill's Cavalcade
Like many other old marches, this is in jig time and here the tune is teamed with another composed by Janet entitled 'O'Neill's Return'.

2. Lamentation of Eoghan Roe O'Neill
This lament was composed by the famous harper Turlough O'Carolan (1670 -1738). Eoghan Roe was the leader of the Irish army at the battle of Benburb in 1646 and his death in 1649 made way for the Cromwellian settlement in Ireland.

3. Chief O'Neill's Favorite
This is the first tune to appear in the hornpipe section of Captain Francis O'Neill's mammoth collection 'The Music of Ireland'. The Captain Francis, or rather 'Chief O'Neill', was a policeman in Chicago who at the beginning of the century made a vast collection of Irish tunes for the Irish immigrant musicians dispersed throughout the U.S.

4. The Maid on the Shore
I learned this Donegal song from Rita Gallagher, one of Ireland's most significant traditional singers. It is one of tragedy where the young maid holds vigil on the shore at night for her beloved sailor who drowns at sea. She hears his voice crying to her on the breeze.

5. Harling's Jig
This tune was first known to me by the title of 'The Dusty Windowsill' which was composed fairly recently by an Irish fiddler in Chicago named Harling. The tune is sometimes also called the 'Chicago'. Here, I dared to apply my own treatment to it by starting it with a slow version of the second two parts of the three-part tune.

6. Sheila
This is a lyrical learner's piece that I composed for one of my pupils.

7. Miss Hamilton
This praise piece was composed by the harper Cornelius Lyons in the early years of the 18th century. Lyons was contemporary with Carolan and for most of his professional life enoyed the patronage of the Clandeboye O'Neills of Antrim. A number of Lyons's settings of tunes were notated from harpers of a later generation by Edward Bunting at the Belfast Harpers Festival of 1792, but this piece is the only one we know to have been composed by him.

8. Lady Iveagh
Bunting published this tune in his 1840 collection and introduced it thus:
"An air remarkable for its haughty and majestic style, suited most probably to the rank and character of the lady to whom it was addressed. The Lady Iveagh, whose name is preserved in this characteristic melody, was Sarah, daughter of Hugh O'Neill, the great Earl of Tyrone. She was married to Art Roe Magennis who was created Viscount lveagh by patent ol July 18th, 1623."
Their marriage took place in 1626.

9. The Wild Geese
The 17th Century in Ireland was one of continuous turmoil commencing with the flight of the Ulster Earls, O'Neill and O'Donnell in 1607. This lead to the Scottish and English plantation of Ulster. After further wars and plantations, the dispossessed Irish gave their support to King James who came to Ireland to wage war with the Dutch King William of Orange for the English throne. Their decisive battle was at the Boyne in 1690, but the final defeat was sealed with the Treaty of Limerick of 1691. The terms of the treaty offered options to the defeated soldiers: to return home, to join Williams army or go to France. Over 10.000 Irishmen went to Europe in exile and these came to be known as the Wild Geese. This is their lamentation.

10. Shane O'Neill's March
This rousing tune is very popular in Ulster with marching bands. My version was found in Captain Francis O'Neill's collection.

11. Siún Ní Dhuihhir
Siún Ní Dhuihhir was a maiden who submitted to a young man's temptations. The song tells of her meeting with the rogue while she was going to a fair to buy a pair of shoes. He persuaded her to drink her fill of whiskey - and after the inevitable moral downfall, she is abandoned.

12. The Butterfly
This is a well-known slipjig which has been interpreted in a number of ways. Here I apply my own ideas using a variety of techniques on the harp including harmonics.

13. The Yellow Man
Yellow man is the sticky, honeycomb sweet that is traditionally made for children at the Lammas Fair of Ballycastle, north county Antrim. The tune which originally belonged to a children's song praising the delight of the sweet, survives now only as a jig. I take some licence with its rhythm!

14. My Lagan Love
This is one of Ulster's favourite love-songs featuring a maid from the banks of the river Lagan, on which Belfast is situated. The text is that of a poem written hy Joseph McCall which was set to an old Irish air by Herbert Hughes in the early years of this century.

15. Eleanor O'Connor, Mo Mháthairín
When I first started to compose for myself, many of my tunes were dedicated to friends that had died or as presents for those who married. Around Christmas-time in 1985, my mother complained that I had not honoured my most consistantly faithful patron with a tune, so this was her gift. Thanks Mum, for everything.

16. Tribute to O'Neill
This composition is Janet's dedication to Lord Raymond O'Neill of Shane's Castle, Country Antrim.

Credits

The recordings were made on digital tape in July 1988 at Homestead Studios. Randalstown, Co. Antrim.
Engineering by Sean Wallace.
Cover design by Donald Neil of Priory Press. Holywood.
Photo by Sean Watters.

The cover shows the white marble statue of O'Neill"s harper, who continues to play for the illustrious ancestors of Ulster's most powerful and historic clan, by the family vault in the grounds of Shane's Castle on Lord O'Neill's estate in Antrim.

My thanks to Lord O'Neill of Shane's Castle for his encouragement and support in this production commemorating the historic O'Neills in the music of their harpers through the centuries.

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