Harps on their sleeves

There is always something slightly eerie about arriving into a winner of the Tidy Towns competition; manicured lawns, fresh paintwork, an abundance of litter bins - is this really Ireland, or is it some Germanic hamlet complete with patrols on the lookout for untidy hair and muddy wheel guards? The signpost for Keadue, Co Roscommon proclaims its winning credentials (for 1993), and sure enough, all the keynotes of a worthy winner are there. But pride of place goes to a garden with a difference: the O'Carolan Heritage Park, named after Turlough O'Carolan, the blind harper and composer of the early 18th century. O'Carolan, whose music is unique in its blend of influences from traditional Irish to European baroque, is a local son; his patrons the McDermott Roes lived just up the road in Alderford House and his grave is just outside the village in Kilronan cemetery.

If the ghost of the feted Turlough had revisited Keadue last Saturday, his sightless eyes wouldn't have appreciated the clean streets; but he would certainly have recognised the sounds that filtered through town. From the hall, the school, the church came wisps of O'Carolan tunes played on harps, big and small, and accompanied by tin whistles, fiddles and flutes. The twentieth international O'Carolan Harp Festival was in full flight and will continue until next Sunday.

The first people I bumped into were Isao and Masako Moriyasu, who cheerfully introduced themselves as "Paddy and Bridget" because "it makes things much easier". The pair have been coming to Ireland for two months every year since Isao first discovered Irish music eight years ago.

"I had studied European baroque music for a long time and my own interest has always been in Japanese folk music. It wasn't until I heard Irish traditional music that I really felt I had found `my' music. When I met Masako I introduced her to the music and she learnt the concertina while we were in Co Clare, but when she broke her hand I gave her a harp and she loves it."

Local pundits say Masako, aka Bridget, is a beautiful traditional harp player and she is also a mean spoons player - an art she taught herself after watching numerous sessions. The main focus of the weekend was Saturday night's concert, when four harpers from the US played for the first time in Ireland. Laurie Riely, Michael MacBean, Therese Honey and - wait for it - Harper Tasche, had never played together before, although Laurie and Michael tour together in the States. Most of the festival-goers gathered in the church to hear the four play O'Carolan tunes, baroque studies, jazz harp, Latin American harp, their own compositions and numerous variations on the almost-jaded Greensleeves. "What we're really doing is bringing postcards from other parts of the world," explained Harper. "Just as the old bards and musicians were travellers who brought news of other places, other traditions and other peoples, so we're bringing little pieces of our worlds, from Alaska where I was brought up, from the Appalachians where the small bowed psaltery harp is so popular, from Paraguay where Michael and Laurie travelled, or from Therese's studies in the baroque tradition."

Michael MacBean took up the theme. "What we do is essentially what O'Carolan himself did. In his music you can find traces of the European music with which he was so familiar, as well as the indigenous Irish tradition in which he was brought up. We also take on the themes, chords and ideas of all the areas we visit and the people we meet."

Traditional music, and particularly the harp, is obviously big in Keadue - O'Carolan is mentioned regularly and with familiarity, as though he had just popped out for a quick pint in McCabes - but it wasn't always so. Luke Gibbons, who grew up in the village and is now a lecturer in DCU, emphasises the importance of a local man, Josie McDermott, who only recently died in his late seventies.

`Twenty-five years ago no one would have known what to do with a harp. Traditional music was really dying in the area and if it wasn't for Josie, who was a magnificent musician, starting to teach the local children and run competitions it would never have been revived. It was particularly special as McDermott learnt much of his music from a grandaunt who had heard O'Carolan's music herself, so it was a very direct line. People here have revived a sub-culture that was always there but had been in danger of dying."

Meanwhile the country's other harp festival kicks off next Thursday in Co Longford. Although Granard's festival does not boast the O'Carolan connection, it does have an interesting history of its own. It was started in 1781 when a local man, John Dungan, who had emigrated to Copenhagen and made good, sent back the mighty sum of 23 guineas as a prize fund for a harp competition. The competition died out, but was revived in 1981 for the 200th anniversary and has been going strong ever since. The highlights of this year's festival - which will be opened by Grainne Yeats, a harper and solo singer for many years with the RTE Symphony Orchestra - are performances by Helen Davies and two harp groups called Itchy Feet and Ash Plant. The Danish connection that started with John Dungan is continued in this year's line-up with Davies who, after years of working with the RTE Symphony Orchestra, is now living and working in Copenhagen, and with Ash Plant, an Irish-Danish group also based in Denmark.It seems strange that the summer's two harp festivals, Keadue and Granard, are held within a week of each other in two adjoining counties, but the organiser of the Granard festival, Elizabeth Hulme, feels it actually works out well. "I don't really know why there are two so close, and really there's not much difference between us, except in a way we're older. It actually works well for both of us as there are not all that many harpers and they will often take two weeks out and come to both festivals."

It seems that there is no great mystery; the part of Ireland that is just down from Sligo and traced throughout with the waterways of the Shannon is simply a great place for the harp.