That's interesting, GSS, I didn't know E1 had ordered such a brutal putdown. From what Jack says, it was a one-off rather than part of a wholesale anti-harp action? I'd be interested to know more from either of you.

Jack, "... after 1600 as the period of greatest development of the Irish harp, but significantly, in a non-traditional direction that made it more suitable for playing early Baroque music." Could this be why, a little later, Turlough O'Carolan was so influenced by the Italian baroque, and why we have only a tiny handful of traditional tunes arranged by him?

"That being what the Irish aristocracy now wanted to listen to, they wouldn't have been very interested in continuing to employ performers on an instrument that could only play an outdated repertoire." And those were the people who gave Carolan his living, so it would make sense for him to compose in a baroque style for them. I know little of Irish harpers contemporary with Carolan: were there others, whose music has survived, composing in a similar recognisably baroque style?

Thanks, GSS, for opening this up. I'll watch this thread with great interest.

Stower