Life
1670-1738 [Toirbhdeallach Ó Cearbhalláin]; b. Newton [nr.
Nobber], Co. Westmeath [var. Meath in Hardiman], son of John O’Carolan;
settled Carrick-on-Shannon, patronised by Lady St. George, befriended
by Madame MacDermott Roe of Alderford House, Ballyfarnan, Co. Roscommon,
and Denis O’Conor of Belanagare, Castlerea, Co. Roscommon; equipped
with horse and servant by the McDermotts, he became a distinguished itinerant
harpist at Irish and Anglo-Irish houses including that of Dr. Delany,
where Swift may have heard him first hand (giving rise to his version
of Aodh Mac Gabhráin’s ‘Pléaráca na Ruarcach’);
influenced by Corelli and Vivaldi; Carolan was the centre of a group of
musicians and songwriters incl. Seamus Dall Mac Cuarta, Cahir MacCabe, Pádraig Mac A Liondáin, and Peadar Ó Doirnin n, from Meath and Louth districts; his
songs incl. ‘The Fairy Queens’, ‘Planxty Reynolds’,
‘Grace Nugent’; ‘Bridget Cruise’; ‘Mild Mabel
Kelly’; ‘Ode to O’More’s Fair Daughter’, called
‘The Hawk of Ballyshannon’; ‘Peggy Browne’; ‘Gentle
Brideen’; and ‘Why, Liquor of Life’; ‘The Cup of O’Hara’;
reputedly forsaw his own death and that of their daughter; composed ‘Farewell
to Music’, his last piece; returned to the McDermott Roe home to
die; d. 25 March; Carolan, a fervent Catholic, was bur. at the east end
of Kilronan Churchyard, Ardagh, funeral being attended by 60 members of
the Catholic clergy; various anecdotes of friendship with Jonathan Swift
reflect the traditional belief that the Dean admired his genius, had him
frequently at the Deanery House in Dublin, and used to hear him play and
sing the ‘‘Pléaráca’’; an annual Harpers’
Festival and traditional music festival is held in Co. Westmeath in his
honour; there is a modern novel by Brian Keenan (Carolan, 2000).
RR DNB DIB BREF OCIL FDA
[ top
]
Works
Turlough Carolan, A Collection of the Most Celebrated Irish Tunes
(Dublin ?726]); Tomás Ó Máille, ed., Amhráin
Chearbhalláin: The Poems of Carolan [Irish Text Soc., No. 17]
(London 1916).
Arrangements incl. Carolan’s concerto: Celtic harp, pedal harp (Abergavenney: Adlais [1996]). [2] pp., 35 cm.
Discography: The Chieftains [Paddy Moloney, et al.], O’Carolan’s Receipt, Vol. I of Music of Carolan (Claddagh, n.d.) [infra]; Máire Ní Chathasaigh & Chris Newman [harp and guitar], The Carolan Albums (Old Bridge Music 1994) [CD & cassette].
O’Carolan’s Receipt, Vol. I of Music of Carolan, Paddy Moloney, et al. [The Chieftains] (Claddagh Records [n.d.]), played by Derek Bell with Paddy Moloney, Sean Potts, Michael Tubridy, Sean[e] Keane and Martin Faye. The literary notes (which enthusiastically support a harmonic treatment of the airs against the purists) are by Gerald Hanley, and the musical notes by Seóirse Bodley.
[ top ]
Criticism
Laurence Whyte, ‘Dissertation on Italian and Irish Musick, with some
panegyrick on Carrallan our late Irish Orpheus’ [1740];
James Hardiman, ‘Memoir of Carolan’, in Irish Minstrelsy (1831; IUP rep. edn. 1971), pp.xli-lviii
Donal O’Sullivan, O’Carolan, Life, Times and Music of an Irish Harper, 2 vols. (1958), and Do. [rep. edn. in 1 vol.] with app. by Bonnie Shaljean (Ossian 2001), 378pp. [incls. recently discovered works]
Robert Welch, A History of Verse Translation from the Irish 1789-1897 (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1988).
Brian Keenan, Turlough: A Novel (London: Jonathan Cape 2000), 331pp.
Richard Ryan, Biographia Hibernica, Irish Worthies (1821), Vol. I, p.383-8; William J. Maguire, Irish Literary Figures (1945), p.24ff.
Paul Walsh, Irish Men of Learning, 1947, ftn. p.2.
Andrew Carpenter, ‘Changing Views of Irish Musical and Literary Culture in Eighteenth-centry Anglo-Irish Literature’, in Michael Kenneally, ed., Irish Literature and Culture, Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1992, p.19.
Michael Ó Suilleabháin, ‘Music, mediation, and the Irish psyche’, in Irish Journal of Psychology, ed., A. Halliday and K. Coyle, eds., ‘The Irish Psyche’ [special issue] 15, 2&3, 1994), pp.337.
Charles A. Read, The Cabinet of Irish Literature ([1876-78]).
Brian de Breffny, Ireland: A Cultural Encyclopaedia (London: Thames & Hudson) The monument in St Patrick’s Cathedral, erected in 1824, is by John Hogan [the Younger] [p.55].
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day Co. 1991), Vol. 1: Swift’s ‘Description of an Irish Feast’, p.399.
[ top ]
COPAC lists (inter alia) Syllabus of the first commemoration of Carolan, consisting of ancient Irish melodies &c. &c. as performed at the Private Theatre in Fishamble-Street on ... September 20th, 1809, and ... at the Rotunda on ... 27th September 1809 in aid of the funds, and under the patronage, of the Irish Harp Society / [by] Irish Harp Society ; League of Nations Society of Ireland; Irish Free State National Conference on Calendar Reform (1809); A general collection of the ancient Irish music : containing a variety of admired airs never before published and also the compositions of Conolan and Carolan / collected from the harpers &c in the different provinces of Ireland, and adapted for the piano-forte, with a prefatory introduction by Edward Bunting (1810); A favorite collection of the so much admired old Irish tunes, the original and genuine compositions of Carolan, set for the pianoforte, violin and German flute (London: Broderip & Wilkinson 1799); The Castle of Andalusia. A Comic Opera [words by J. O.'Keefe] ... the Selected Airs by Handel, Vento, Giordani, Bertoni, Giardini, Dr Arne, & Carolan the Irish Bard. The Overture, Chorusses. New Airs &c. composed, by Dr Arnold. Op.xx (1782).
Dictionary of National Biography, O’Carolan or Carolan; blinded by smallpox, 1684; wanderings, 1692; ‘Gracey Nugent,’ ‘Bridget Cruise,’ ‘Receipt for Drinking,’ and ‘Planxty Stafford’; 50 pieces survived in Irish collections. And note, There is a portrait of Carolan by Francis Bindon [see Oxford Illustrated Irish History, 1989, p.298; also incl. in Ulster Museum Irish port. exhibition, intro. Anne Crookshank, 1965].
Friends & Patrons: Carolan’s
best friend was fellow-harper and drinking companion Charles MacCabe;
his patrons incl. Terence MacDonough, a prominent Catholic lawyer.
Bridget’s hand: Carolan made a pilgrimage to Lough Derg where reportedly be recognised the hand of his first love Bridget helping him from the boat.
William Dunkin eulogised him as an Irish Orpheus and an Irish Homer in his ‘Dissertation upon Italian and Irish Music’.
Austin Clarke made a version of Carolan’s ‘Máible Ní Cheallaigh’ (Mabel Kelly), in which, the happy husband ‘sees the tumble of brown hair/Unplait[ed], the breasts, pointed and bare/when night-dress shows/From dimple to toe-nail/all Mabel glowing in it, here, there, everywhere.’ [See Flight from Africa].
John Montague cites Goldsmith’s ‘Carolan, the Irish Bard’, in ‘The Sentimental Prophecy: A Study of The Deserted Village’, in Dolmen Miscellany of Irish Writing, eds., J. Montague & Thomas Kinsella (1962), p.62-80. (See also under Arthur Dawson, (Rx.).
Eoghan Ó Tuairisc issued a musical drama based on the life of Carolan, produced at Damer Hall, 1979.
Portraits: there is a sketch of Carolan in Watty Cox’s Magazine (Nov. 1806; rep. Oct. 1809); a plaque was erected by Lady Morgan in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin; there is a bronze sculpture of Carolan, seated, by Melanie le Brocquy, held on loan at Clonalis House, Co. Roscommon.
Lady Morgan: A monument in bas-relief by Hogan, son of the better-known sculptor, done in Rome at Lady Morgan’s expense, is in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, north aisle; ‘By the desire of Lady MORGAN/To the memory of/CAROLAN/The Last of the Irish Bards./Obiit AD MDCCXXXVIII/ Aetatis Suae An LXVIII; his skull stolen from this Kilronan, and still preserved [at date of writing] in museum of Castle Caldwell, home of Sir John Caldwell; his harp in possession of The O’Conor Don. (See Alexander Leeper, DD, Historical Handbook of St Patrick’s Cathedral, 1891.)
[ top ]
Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)