As everybody knows, there are different motives on the reverse of the new euro coins. The Irish chose the Gaelic harp because it has been the country's national symbol since the 17th century. On the Irish euro coins you can further find the Irish word Eire for the Republic of Ireland and 2002, the year when the euro was introduced. The following text will give you some information on the history and the tradition of the Gaelic harp.
According to Irish mythology, several divine sibs settled in Ireland in prehistoric times. The sib of the goddess Dana brings magic objects to the people: a stone, a sword, a spear, a cauldron - and the magic harp of the god Dagda. It is said that with this instrument you can express things which are beyond language. Traditionally, the Gaelic harp was the typical instrument of the bards, those musicians and poets at the time of the Celts.
The earliest depictions of harps come from Mesopotamia and Egypt.
Here you can see a wooden statue of a musician with an angled harp from Egypt.
These ancient harps had a variety of shapes and sizes.
The strings, made of hair and plant fiber, were tied around the harpist's arm or neck.
This picture shows a musician with a type of arched harp.
In the early 9th century, there were the first drawings of triangular-frame harps which
appeared in the Utrecht Psalter that was written and illustrated at that time.
Here is one detail of them.
In an Anglo-Saxon manuscript, illustrated in the 11th century and known as Caedmonīs Metrical Paraphrase of Scripture History, you can see Jubal of Genesis playing a harp, 90cm high, which rests on his right shoulder. The word "harp" is derived from an Anglo-Saxon word which means "to pluck" (German: zupfen).
A later word used in Scotland and Ireland for the harp was clarsach. Both words were and are still used at the same time. The earliest Gaelic harps that survived date back to the 15th century. The harp on the left is the so-called Trinity College harp. It is one of Irelandīs national 
treasures. Its resemblance to a Scottish harp from the 15th century made of stone suggests its origin.
By the 17th century, Gaelic harps were built larger, with 34 strings and more. Some of them were carved with ornaments. The Castle Otway harp (picture) still retains the shape of the smaller instruments.
At the beginning of the 18th century, the harps were built even taller. The longer bass strings of these high-headed instruments could produce a much clearer and stronger sound, although the number of strings was still at about 33-39. The overall height of the Sirr harp is about 1.5 metres.
Music was an important part of life in ancient Ireland, and professional harpists were honoured a lot. There may have been harp schools in Ireland, as there certainly were in Wales, where harpists spent several years of intensive training.
But by the 18th century, the traditional Irish harpists were nearly extinct. Just to preserve the old harping tradition, a festival was organized in Belfast in July 1792. Newspapers invited all Irish harpists to come and play. But only 10 Irish and one Welsh harpists showed up.
Edward Bunting, a 19-year-old church organist of that time, wrote down all the tunes of the harpists and published three collections in 1797, 1809 and 1840. He did not only collect music, but also knowledge and technical information from the musicians, so it was due to his work that the art of playing the harp has been passed on to future generations.
Until that time lots of musicians began harping and starting to publish collections of themselves. Some harpists even had the idea of rebuilding some old harps like the Castle Otaway harp and played on them.
In more recent times, the old harps have become museum pieces. The Trinity College harp (Dublin) was restored to playable condition in 1961 and made a debut on the BBC, but some time later it became a symbol of something past. Lots of researchers and harpists have assisted in the recovery of the tradition. They have uncovered much fascinating information about the Gaelic harp in Scotland. As in other areas of research, the real discoveries come from doing. By learning to play the harp (clarsach), the tradition will be revived.
im Schuljahr 2001/02 von Thomas Mischke (9a) und Simon Burkard (9a)
