Description
Explore the poetry and music of the Gaelic world, and learn to sing and play two beautiful songs, one in Scottish Gaelic and one in Irish.
The first half of this course will introduce you to Sìleas na Ceapaich, a Highland Scottish poet who lived from ca. 1660 to 1729. The daughter of Archibald Macdonald, the 15th Chief of Clan MacDonald of Keppoch, and Mary Macmartin of the Macmartin Camerons, she is notable for her important contribution to Scottish Gaelic literature, and her surviving poems —often written with a Jacobite theme— are still admired today. Explore her life and poetry and learn to sing and play a Scottish Gaelic lament she composed for her family's harper, set to a traditional Scottish melody.
In the second half of this course, delve into the music and poetry of the eighteenth-century Irish harper poet, Molaí Nic Giolla Fhiondáin. The daughter of Pádraig Mac Giolla Fhiondáin, himself a harper poet, she was admired in her time as a gifted harper, and is one of the few known Irish harper composers whose works survive. Learn about Molaí Nic Giolla Fhiondáin, and learn to sing and play her most well known harp song, Coillte Glasa a’ Triúcha [The Green Woods of Truagh]. This song was played by the prize-winning harper Arthur O'Neil at the Granard harp balls and the 1792 gathering of harpers in Belfast, and was still being sung in the oral tradition in Ulster in the early 20th century.
All types of harps welcome!