Trinity College harp
{{Short description|Medieval musical instrument and Irish symbol}}
{{Use Irish English|date=December 2018}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2018}}
File:Trinity College harp, Dublin, Ireland, 2017 (cropped).jpg
The Trinity College harp, also known as "Brian Boru's harp", is a medieval musical instrument on display in the long room at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland. It is an early Irish harp or wire-strung cláirseach. It is dated to the 14th or 15th century and, along with the Queen Mary Harp and the Lamont Harp, is the oldest{{cite book|last1=O'Brien|first1=Máire|author-link1=Máire Mhac an tSaoi|last2=O'Brien|first2=Conor Cruise|author-link2=Conor Cruise O'Brien|date=1999|orig-year=1972|chapter=A Conquest Absorbed|title=Ireland: A Concise History|edition=3rd ed. (rev.) and reprinted|location=New York, NY|publisher=Thames and Hudson|page=[https://archive.org/details/concisehistoryof00obri_0/page/52 52]|isbn=0-500-27379-0|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/concisehistoryof00obri_0/page/52}} of three surviving medieval harps from the region.Joan Rimmer, "The Morphology of the Irish Harp", The Galpin Society Journal, vol. 17 (1964), pp. 39–49. The harp was used as a model for the coat of arms of Ireland and for the trade-mark of Guinness stout.
History
It is uncertain who commissioned the Trinity College harp, although structural evidence suggests it was made in the fifteenth century. It is similar in construction and design to the Queen Mary Clarsach in Scotland. It is likely, however, that the harp was made for a member of an important family, for it is skilfully constructed and intricately ornamented.
File:Trinity College, Brian Boro's Harp, Dublin City, Co. Dublin (28907881440).jpg
File:Pub plaque, Omagh - geograph.org.uk - 660876.jpg
According to Charles Vallancey writing in 1786, it was reputedly once owned by Brian Boru, High King of Ireland in the early eleventh century.{{cite journal|last=Vallancey|first=Charles|title=Brien Boiromh's Harp|journal=Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicus|year=1786|volume=4|pages=33|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LG8BAAAAYAAJ&q=%22These+regalia+were+deposited+in+the+Vatican%22&pg=PA33|accessdate=13 December 2012|authorlink=Charles Vallancey|publisher=L. White}} However, this link was dismissed by George Petrie in 1840 as "a clumsy forgery, which will not bear for a moment the test of critical antiquarian examination". Petrie dates its construction "to the fourteenth, or more probably to the early part of the fifteenth century."{{cite book|last=Petrie|first=George|title=The Ancient Music of Ireland: Arranged for Piano|year=1840|publisher=Courier Dover Publications|isbn=9780486413761|pages=40–44|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OSFUBb9PrjAC&q=%22memoir+of+ancient+irish+harp+preserved+in+trinity+college%22&pg=PA40|authorlink=George Petrie (artist)|editor=Edward Bunting|accessdate=13 December 2012|chapter=Memoir of Ancient Irish Harp preserved in Trinity College}} Joan Rimmer (1969) dated it to "probably from the fourteenth century".Joan Rimmer, The Irish Harp (Cork: Mercier Press, 1969; 3rd edition, 1984), p. 33.
The harp bears the coat of arms of the O'Neills but although there are many theories about its ownership through the centuries, none can be substantiated, with no verifiable evidence remaining to indicate the harp's original owner, or subsequent owners over the next two to three hundred years until it reputedly passed to Henry McMahon of County Clare, and finally to William Conyngham, who presented it to Trinity College in 1782.{{cite book|last=Flood|first=William Henry Grattan|title=A history of Irish music|year=1970|publisher=Praeger|pages=65|isbn=9780716505921|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tyEDAQAAMAAJ&q=%22+Conyngham+donated+it+to+Trinity+College%22|authorlink=W. H. Grattan Flood}}
The Trinity College harp is the national symbol of Ireland, being depicted on national heraldry, Euro coins and Irish currency. A left-facing image of this instrument was used as the national symbol of Ireland from 1922, and was specifically granted to the State by the Chief Herald of Ireland in 1945.The National Library of Ireland, volume: G.O. MS 111G; Folio number: 20; grant dated 9 November 1945. A right-facing image was registered as a trade mark for Guinness in 1876,{{cite book|last=Dennison|first=S.R. (Stanley Raymond)|title=Guinness 1886–1939: From Incorporation to the Second World War|year=1998|publisher=Cork University Press|isbn=9781859181751|pages=9|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7q6vPnWj2tkC&q=were+quick+to+follow|author2=Oliver McDonagh }} although it was first used on their labels from 1862.{{cite book|last=Yenne|first=Bill|title=Guinness: The 250 Year Quest for the Perfect Pint|year=2007|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=9780470120521|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yQY3p75FIdUC&q=the+specific+harp+that+benjamin+lee+chose&pg=PT54}} Other Irish businesses have used a similar harp as a logo or trade mark, including Ryanair. The two other surviving Gaelic harps from this period (the Lamont Harp and the Queen Mary Harp) are considered to have been made in Argyll in South West Scotland sometime in the 14th–15th century.Keith Sanger and Alison Kinnaird, Tree of Strings. Crann nan Teud (Kinmor, 1992).
Appearance
The harp is of a small low-headed design with brass pins for 29 strings, the longest being c.62 cm. One extra bass pin was added at some point in its playing life. In 1961, the harp was exhibited in London, where it was dismantled, reconstructed by the British Museum into the wider shape it has nowadays, being the playable medieval form, and restrung under the supervision of the British musicologist Joan Rimmer.Penny Vera-Sanso, "Joan Rimmer, 1918–2014", in The Galpin Society Journal vol. 69 (2016), April, p. 245. The earlier heraldic and trade mark designs that were modelled on it were based on a thinner form that was the result of a bad restoration in the 1830s. Visitors are therefore often surprised at how wide the real harp is, compared to the harp on Irish coins.