The link given by harpmolly (11 Jan 06 - 12:34 AM), that I "clickfied" in the 2d post later (12:43), has a picture of "Carolan's harp," although it doesn't give any information about it. It looks like it was pretty simple, but the image doesn't blow up enough to tell whether it may have had some simple ornamental carving. By the time it's enlarged enough to bring up any detail it all looks like duct tape. It doesn't look to be kept in tune...

The text describes the "typical harp" as gut strung, but that Carolan played the "new Irish harp" with metal strings.

Note that Carolan wrote and played "Songs" and not "Tunes." Some session players now insist that there should be different handling for Songs, and cite a tradition that they should have no - or minimal - accompaniment (and making up chords is forbidden). Mostly, they then proceed to play them all alike, since we/they don't really know how to do songs in any traditional style - and besides everyone wants to play all the time, all the pieces (at my area sessions).

John