There was a time when we used to congratulate ourselves on the fact that we were the only country in the world to have a musical instrument as our national symbol. It was perhaps part of some de Valeran hangover in which we compensated for our economic insecurities by proclaiming our supposed cultural superiority. Had the harpist not been the most revered figure in Gaelic society? Had the harp not been adopted by the likes of the United Irishmen and Daniel O’Connell to rally the nation?
These days the harp is a more humdrum presence in our lives, appearing on the few coins we still carry in our pocket in case the card or phone doesn’t work, on the dreaded brown envelopes that periodically arrive through the letterbox from Revenue and on the tail fin of the low-cost flights we take to escape the weather.
Abroad, the Irish harp is more visible as the logo of a certain stout than the Irish state. Indeed, Guinness began using the right-facing harp to brand its product a full 60 years before the State was forced to adopt a left-facing harp so as not to breach the brewery’s trademark. In 1960, Guinness added insult to injury by heretically using the harp as a name for its new-fangled German lager.
And we are not the only country in the world to regard the harp as a national symbol. In Paraguay, while not officially recognised as an emblem of the state, the harp has long been seen as a vital component of the national identity, or the idea of paraguayidad, which may be translated as Paraguayan-ness. But whereas in Ireland, the harp was a symbol of national self-determination, in Paraguay, it was initially associated with the coloniser.
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Spanish missionaries are believed to have first brought the harp to South America from Europe in the 16th century. At the beginning of the 17th century, the Jesuits began establishing their first reducciones among the Guaraní people in the province of Paraguay and introduced the harp as an instrument to accompany liturgical singing.
Among the earliest Jesuit missionaries in Paraguay was a Limerick-born priest by the name of Thomas Fields. And while it is tempting to ascribe to Fr Fields the introduction of the harp to Paraguay – and some Irish historians of an nationalist bent have attempted to do so in the past – it is also ahistorical.
While Fields was among the first Catholic priests to minister to the Guaraní in the late sixteenth century, he and the handful of his Jesuit companions who had been sent to Paraguay were not at that stage able to establish a permanent mission outside of Asunción. They did, however, play a vital role in ensuring the continuing presence of the Jesuits in Paraguay, as well as contributing to the compilation of the first Spanish-Guaraní dictionary.
After the expulsion of the Jesuits from South America in 1767, the use of the harp in Paraguayan society moved gradually away from the sacred and liturgical.
By the 20th century, the Paraguayan arpa had become the unofficial national folk instrument.
The arpa had long been adapted to Paraguayan conditions. It was made from native tropical woods and was smaller and lighter, making it more portable for folk musicians. And while the harp had originally been introduced to the country by Europeans, by the 1930s, thanks to celebrated arpistas such as Félix Pérez Cardozo, who brought Paraguayan music to a new audience abroad, it had become an expression of national cultural pride.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Paraguayan harpists enjoyed international recognition and embarked on global tours, while the Stroessner dictatorship endorsed Paraguayan music in order to associate itself with popular expressions of the national culture.
Unusually in South America, Paraguayan self-identity became firmly rooted in the traditions and culture of the indigenous people and the harp came to represent the confluence of the Guaraní and Spanish traditions. Whereas in Europe, the harp is often associated with an ethereal sound, often with Celtic connotations – think Clannad – the Paraguayan harp is played in a much more boisterous, upbeat and rhythmic fashion.
In 2023, to recognise the place of the instrument in Paraguayan culture, a 15-metre-tall statue of a harp was unveiled along Asunción’s Costanera, the main thoroughfare which skirts the capital along the river Paraguay, before a festival of Paraguayan harp music.
While we do not have a statue of the sort they have erected in Asunción, we do have an even larger replica of a harp in the centre of Dublin. But instead of sitting upright along the river, it lies across it: the 123-metre long Samuel Beckett Bridge, modelled on an Irish harp lying sideways and named after one of the country’s great literary musical enthusiasts.