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Antique Harps

The HHSI collection of antique and replica harps

Egan Royal Portable harp

The first harp acquired for the HHSI Harp Collection is an Egan Royal Portable harp made in the 1820s, which was donated to the Society in 2008 by Mrs Elsa Warren. More info & photos

 

 

Barra harp

Our second acquisition is an unsigned harp said to have been made in Barra, Scotland, in the early twentieth century. It was donated to the Society in 2009 by Dr Barbara Wright, Trinity College Dublin. The harp was purchased for her by her mother, in 1947, from the widow of F.R. Higgins, of the Abbey Theatre. more images

L-R: Anne Robson, Siobhán Armstrong, Tristram Robson, Christine Ring, Simon Chadwick, Layton Ring

17th-century chromatic Irish harp

The third instrument in the HHSI Collection is a reconstruction of a seventeenth-century chromatic Irish harp, based on the Cloyne fragments, made by musician, scholar and instrument-maker, Dr Tristram Robson. The harp was donated to the HHSI by the late Dr Robson in 2011.

McFall harp

The fourth instrument – added to the collection in 2014 – is a small harp made by James McFall, Belfast, in the first half of the twentieth century. This instrument has 22 strings, 18 of iron wire plus 4 wound bass strings. More info & photos…

Donations

If you are considering donating an Egan or other eighteenth-, nineteenth- or early-twentieth century harp to a public collection or institution, please consider the HHSI first.

The HHSI also maintains the HHSI Student-Harp Collection, a collection of modern-built, early Irish harps available to HHSI members to rent for tuition with an HHSI tutor. Please contact us for more information about tution. 

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