This much I know: life is a journey—a tremendous journey of learning—an adventure shaped by vague planning and random happenings. Everything that has surprised, delighted, terrified, and disappointed me has taught me something valuable. Those experiences have proved relevant at some point and expanded my capacity for understanding, empathizing, learning, and communicating what life has taught, and I’m still getting better at it, year after year.
[In Germany], I discovered the esteem with which the harp and its music were held in the wider world…I found a more serious purpose for my frivolous dalliance.
I never chose to follow my path, as it was fairly well predicated for me. I expected to have a glamorous husband, charming home, three or four children—all talented, smart, sporty, good-looking, well-behaved, and, and, and… Ah, the fairy tale delusion! I had a great interest in medicine, but that was a path that welcomed boys.
I fell into harping because lessons were offered at my school. My father loved the Marx Brothers and he delighted in the film where a piano fell apart on a ship, and Harpo started playing it like a harp. My harp lessons were intended as a side-interest, a musical dalliance while I focused on “real music,” which I studied at various salubrious colleges (Dublin and London) with classical piano. Following in my father’s footsteps, I won piano competitions. I was “good” and destined to be a performer…until I would marry, and then become a teacher a few nights a week, perhaps. To rebel was futile as this is just how it was, and the idea of performing filled me with dread. I was the performer that was sick with nerves and anxiety to the point that my legs have gone into spasm while playing and I have dashed off stage a few times to be physically ill. I hated the idea of becoming a piano teacher even more as I had been such a horrid, uncooperative student myself. I would have never been able to endure a student like me!
The death of my father the year I left school changed everything, and while gigantically sad, this was the liberation of me. I delighted in a freedom I hadn’t known before, and my first wish was to experience boys. I became a student at Trinity College, Dublin, and completed degrees in music and psychology and continued t o an M.A. degree. I funded myself by being the resident drawing room pianist in the Shelbourne Hotel, and I played piano in late-night jazz clubs. I had learned how to look after myself, and I was having a mountain of fun…until May 1978. I had a bicycling accident, breaking my little pinkie finger on my right hand the day before the finals of the Feis Ceol Rosebowl (the equivalent of “young musician of the year” competition). I turned up at the competition with my arm in plaster. I couldn’t take the summer school at Juilliard I was scheduled to attend, and as I had an idle summer ahead, my friend Micheál took me and my harp on the “trad trail” of festivals and competitions. I won everything—even some big money prizes. I was “discovered” and whisked off to tour the USA and Canada with Comhaltas (the Irish national music organization). I was riding the crest of a wave, and my confidence grew exponentially.
From 1968, the Troubles (political strife) raged in Northern Ireland, and my beloved Belfast cousins were suffering terribly. Circumstances on the homefront compelled me to help. I joined my cousins in the peace movement (the Peace People) and immediately found myself working with Peace People leader and Nobel peace prize winner Betty Williams in Germany. There I gave many recitals, played at dinners, and spoke publicly about Northern Ireland’s cultural heritage. I talked about the fact that our harp has a dual heritage. It was Ireland’s national emblem because of the excellence of ancient harpers, and it was British King Henry VIII that established the harp as the emblem of Ireland in the 16th century. Harpers depended on the patronage of the ascendency, so the instrument and its music straddled the traditions. In Germany, my audience was composed of diplomats, ministers, and industrial leaders all collaborating to help bring peace, reconciliation, and stability to Ireland’s beleaguered province. In this work, I discovered the esteem with which the harp and its music was held in the wider world. Until that point, the harp had caused me no anxiety. It had given me financial independence, summer seasons’ entertainment jobs, competition triumphs, stage fame, touring experiences across the world, and a wonderful social life among the community of trad musicians. In Germany I found a more serious purpose for my frivolous dalliance.
I returned to Ireland and to Queen’s University Belfast to do a doctorate focusing on the harp in 18th century Ireland and its role in Irish political, social, and cultural life. Awarded a research fellowship at the Institute of Irish Studies, I found that I could perform and talk about the instrument to both communities.
I was invited to become Curator of Music at the Ulster Folk Museum and to join the working party in developing the a music curriculum. I lectured using the harp for music demonstrations and created projects that brought the divided community to perform their music on the same stage. This led to the Belfast Harp Orchestra project where I taught the harp to children from both communities and brought them together to perform for an audience at home and abroad, while representing their own traditions. We became a “good news” story from Northern Ireland, touring the world and winning many awards, including a Grammy with the Chieftains.
I started teaching harp, as I needed the orchestra members to be the best they could be. They ranged in age from 10 to 17, and I constantly had to train more players as older ones dropped out in their state exam years, emigrating to colleges elsewhere in the UK. Migration of the young from Northern Ireland became another great tragedy, but it was my joy to work with the children, their families, and extended communities. Every rehearsal was a communal effort—we became an amazing family. And, surprise, surprise, I learned to love my work! The community in Northern Ireland supported us, and the media celebrated us. My students taught me how to teach, and I acknowledged their gift in my dedication of the first edition of tutor books, asking them to excuse me for experimenting on them and thanking them for their patience and the privilege of learning with them.
In 2002, because the political environment in Northern Ireland remained unstable, I moved our whole operation to Limerick, establishing the Irish Harp Centre and expanding our college to train harpers from all over the world. With over 100 Irish harp students attending the Centre weekly and with live-in, full-time apprentices from the Americas, Europe, and the Far East, we evolved from the Belfast Harp Orchestra to the Irish Harp Orchestra. Life was hectic. There were challenges too, of course. September 11 was devastating for our American students, I battled cancer and was out of commission for two and a half years. The recession happened, and in 2016 we sold our beautiful and amazing house to move to England and care for my husband’s parents. I moved back to Northern Ireland (commuting from London) where I became a Visiting Professor in Irish Music at Ulster University. I am currently completing an academic volume on Harp Learning by Note, Rote and Reason. Over the years, I have had the privilege of training up many of Ireland’s truly great players of today. I am enormously proud of them and proud of the role that our activities played in creating an audience for them.
Through all the triumphs and tribulations, this much I know: life is a journey—a tremendous journey of learning—an adventure shaped by vague planning and apparently random happenings. •
