Turlough O'Carolan ( ; 167025 March 1738) was a blind Celtic harper, composer and singer in Ireland whose great fame is due to his gift for melodic composition.
Although not a composer in the classical sense, Carolan is considered by some to be Ireland's national composer. Harpers in the old Irish tradition were still living as late as 1792, and ten, including Arthur O'Neill, Patrick Quin and Donnchadh Ó hÁmsaigh, attended the Belfast Harp Festival. Ó hÁmsaigh played some of Carolan's music, but disliked it for being too modern. Some of Carolan's own compositions show influences of the style of continental classical music, whereas others such as Farewell to Music reflect a much older style of "Gaelic Harping".
Biography
Carolan was born in 1670 in Nobber, County Meath, where his father was a blacksmith. The family, who were said to be a branch of the Mac Brádaigh sept of County Cavan (Carolan's great-grandfather, Shane Grana O'Carrolan, was chieftain of his sept in 1607), forfeited their estates during the civil wars and moved from Meath in 1684 to Ballyfarnon, County Roscommon, on the invitation of the family of MacDermot Roe of Alderford House. In Roscommon, his father took a job with the MacDermott Roe family. Mrs. MacDermott Roe gave Turlough an education, and he showed talent in poetry. After being blinded by smallpox at the age of eighteen, Carolan was apprenticed by Mrs. MacDermott Roe to a good harper. At the age of twenty-one, being given a horse and a guide, he set out to travel Ireland and compose songs for patrons.
For almost fifty years, Carolan journeyed from one end of Ireland to the other, composing and performing his tunes. One of his earliest compositions was about Brigid Cruise, with whom he was infatuated. Brigid was the teenage daughter of the schoolmaster at the school for the blind attended by Carolan in Cruisetown, Ireland. In 1720, Carolan married Mary Maguire. He was then 50 years of age. Their first family home was a cottage on a parcel of land near the town of Manachain (now Mohill) in County Leitrim, where they settled. They had seven children, six daughters and one son. In 1733 Mary died.
Turlough O'Carolan died on 25 March 1738. He is buried in the MacDermott Roe family crypt in Kilronan Burial Ground near Ballyfarnon, County Roscommon. The annual O'Carolan Harp Festival and Summer School commemorates his life and work in Keadue, County Roscommon.
A bronze monument by sculptor Oisin Kelly depicting Turlough O'Carolan playing his harp was erected on a plinth at the Market Square, Mohill, on 10 August 1986, and was unveiled by Patrick Hillery, President of Ireland.
A statue was erected to him in 2002 at his place of birth, during the Annual O'Carolan Harp Festival, the first of which was held in Nobber in 1988.
Music and style
Carolan composed both songs and instrumental harp music, reflecting various styles of composition. About a third of Carolan's surviving music has associated Irish lyrics that survive to this day. These lyrics are largely unknown to the musicians of today, who have for the most part adapted Carolan's repertoire to the currently popular Irish fare of jigs and reels.
Modern Irish was the majority language in Ireland during Carolan's time. As Carolan did not speak English very well, he composed only one song in English, "Carolan's Devotion". These lyrics can be heard on the album "Carolan's Harp", by The Harp Consort, 1996. Most of Carolan's songs were dedicated to and written about specific individual patrons. Many of his tunes are widely performed and appreciated today, and a handful of the songs with known lyrics have been recorded by singers. Among these are Gráinne Yeats (Belfast Harp Festival, 1992) and the singers of Garlic Bread ("O'Carolan's Dream", 2007) and Ensemble Musica Humana ("Turlough O'Carolan: a Life in Song", 2013).