- Arts Council Funding-Application Evaluation, 2019
HHSI supporters receive updates on activities (make sure you have signed up to our e-newsletter), and in Ireland, have access to the HHSI library. If you are taking tuition with an HHSI teacher, you also have the possibility to rent an HHSI Student harp.
Membership runs from January to December each year. All members are listed on the HHSI Supporters page, unless they wish to remain anonymous.
BY POST
You can post us a cheque or postal order made payable to:
The Historical Harp Society of Ireland,
33 Altamount Park,
Kilkenny R95 R7DE,
Co. Kilkenny, Ireland.
We accept foreign-currency cheques for an amount equivalent to €35 or above.
DIRECT BANKING
You can make a direct credit transfer to:
Acc. Name: The Historical Harp Society of Ireland
Bank address: Allied Irish Bank,
3 High St, Kilkenny,
Co. Kilkenny, Ireland,
IBAN: IE39 AIBK 9331 9847 9670 49
BIC / SWIFT: AIBKIE2D
We present nationally accessible early Irish harp Discovery Days with 'Listen – Learn – Have a Go!' events in collaboration with other Irish organisations, festivals and institutions.
Find out more here
We offer players taking HHSI tuition affordable access to the first ever rental collection of early Irish harps. We have seventeen instruments in total: nine HHSI harp models based on medieval to eighteenth-century harps in museum and private collections. Cost: €35 p.c.m.
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The HHSI offers a tutor-finding service for early Irish harp tuition for term time classes in Dublin, Galway, Kilkenny, Armagh and Waterford. Classes are individual and normally last for sixty minutes. Longer lessons are also possible. We can also help you access online tuition available over Skype (and similar). Currently we have networked tutors to players in the USA, Canada, Brazil, Italy, UK and Japan.
Contact us for info
The HHSI has 500+ items in the first ever members’ library of books, periodicals, CDs and ephemera, devoted to early Irish harp and related subjects (Irish history and culture; 17th-21st century scholarly material; parallel European source material; sound recordings and ephemera). In 2020 our online catalogue went live in an integrated library management system.
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One-to-one artist support time is now a key, integral part of our remit to foster the rediscovery of the early Irish harp: mentoring artists and inspiring them through dissemination of the latest expert knowledge in the field and also helping them to network with diverse experts in this – and related – fields.
Contact us for info
The Historical Harp Society of Ireland is assembling a collection of antique and replica harps. If you are considering donating an eighteenth-, nineteenth- or early-twentieth century harp to a public collection or institution, please consider the HHSI first.
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The Historical Harp Society of Ireland aims to connect to as much useful and relevant information as possible. If you know of any additional links that may be approcriate please contact us.
Useful Links
Watch 60+ videos of concert performances, talks and workshops filmed at our events over the years, recorded and made available as a public resource on our dedicated Youtube channel.
HHSI Youtube Channel
The HHSI’s Scoil na gCláirseach–Festival of Early Irish Harp is Ireland’s international annual festival for the instrument with interactive presentations, workshops, talks, intensive daily tuition and walk-in Beginners’ Taster events.
Festival Site
We support cutting-edge scientific research on surviving historic Irish harps by the world experts in the field. Learn about our project to research the Hollybrook harp, and access the project’s online resources for harp makers.
Report: The Hollybrook Project
Some of those we have coached and mentored over the years are now professional artists, harp tutors, harp builders and/or have achieved MAs and PhDs in the field from e.g. Ireland, Northern Ireland, The Canary Islands, Poland and the USA. Some of our international festival participants now bring their own students to Ireland to take part in Scoil na gCláirseach—Festival of Early Irish Harp each summer so our work is now giving rise to an international second generation of performers. Harp makers benefit from our scientific survey projects in having access to the most up-to-date data in order to build replicas of early Irish harps.
We have a commitment to high-quality, collaborative arts practice. We have excellent links to – and have collaborated on programming with – many other music organisations, third-level institutions, churches and cultural centres – both north and south – in Ireland to provide concert events but also Illustrated Talks and Beginners’ workshop events for amateur and non-musicians to try out the early Irish harp. These organisations include: The National Museum of Ireland; The Office of Public Works; Trinity College Dublin; NUI Galway; Na Píobairi Uilleann, Dublin; Music Network; Galway Early Music Festival; The Seamus Ennis Arts Centre, Co. Dublin; The Remembering Bunting Festival, Belfast; Harp Ireland, Cairde na Cruite, churches and cultural centres.
Michael D. Higgins, PRESIDENT OF IRELAND
The Historical Harp Society of Ireland is honoured to have the support of the President of Ireland for our work.
The Society is also immensely grateful to its funding bodies, supporters and associate members, without whose generous support our work to revive the early Irish harp would not be possible. Go raibh maith agaibh go léir: Thank you all very much indeed.
The HHSI is proud to be supported by An Chomhairle Ealaíon (The Arts Council)
Our unique collection of HHSI Student rental harps has been made possible with funding from The Music Capital Scheme, supported by the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht and managed by Music Network.
The above benefactors have given substantial material support in the form of acquisitions for the HHSI library, and / or harps, for which the Society is very grateful.