mg, my 29 February post to this thread did not single out Carolan a/k/a Cearbhalláin, this is true. My post only spoke generally of blind Irish harpists who played harps with wire strings. Carolan is certainly in that category, actually he is the most memorable of the lot.

In this day and age, we have Derek Bell of happy memory, who made two solo recordings of Carolan's music. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Mr. Bell made those recordings with a harp with wire strings. Elsewhere, Bell admitted that he toured with a nylon-string harp because wire-string harps are so terribly sensitive to fluctuations in temperature and humidity that one cannot keep the things in tune during tour performances.

And in between the epoch of Carolan, and the revival of Carolan's music by everyone from Sean O'Riada to Derek Bell, I have to ask you, mg....where are all the harp-playing males IN BETWEEN? At that point it seems that the harp survived, erm, in spite of men musicians. (One exception would be classical music but that is a different tradition.)