Biography
Turlough O'Carolan, a blind harp player active between 1670 and 1737, stood among the foremost Irish musicians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Over his lifetime he produced hundreds of songs whose melodies kept appearing on recordings by traditional Irish and Celtic performers more than two hundred sixty years after his passing. Although not blind from birth, O'Carolan lost his sight at eighteen and shortly afterward began studying the harp. His fame quickly spread throughout Ireland while he turned out instrumental after instrumental. Prosperous households across the country engaged him for private performances, and he returned the favor by titling pieces after his hosts. “Lady Atherny,” “Eleanor Plunkett/William Plunkett,” “John Irwin,” and “George Brabazon” number among those dedications. Hundreds of additional works from the same period include “Merrily Kissed the Quaker’s Wife,” “The Little Beggarman,” “O’Carolan’s Concerto,” and “The Foggy Dew.” He died in 1738 at the age of sixty-eight. Because recording technology did not yet exist, no performances by O’Carolan were ever captured. Numerous twentieth-century artists nevertheless committed his compositions to disc. Two hundred forty-four years after his death, American harp player Melissa Morgan issued the 1982 Kicking Mule album Erin’s Harp in tribute. Among the respected Irish and Scottish musicians who have recorded his music are the Chieftains, Patrick Street, Dordan, El McMeen, the Battlefield Band, and Aine Minogue.
Albums
