An Irishman's Diary

THIS TIME last year, readers may recall, I told the story of Pádraig Dall Ó Beirn: “the last of the great Irish harpers”. Blind Patrick Byrne, as he became known, was born close to – and is buried in – my home town. Despite which, frankly, I had never heard of him until contacted by the organisers of an annual music school now held in his honour: the latest instalment of which is this weekend.

There has been a twist in the tale since then, and we’ll return to it shortly. But first, by way of recapping Byrne’s life, I should mention a seeming paradox about his last resting place: the paupers’ cemetery in Carrickmacross.

The puzzle is that Byrne was a famous and, by local standards, wealthy man when he died, numbering British royalty among his many admirers. This fact is reflected in his stately tomb: which, recording that he was harper by royal appointment to Prince Albert, is all the more at odds with its humble surroundings.

That said, Byrne’s origins were humble too. He was born poor, Catholic, and Irish-speaking, probably in 1794, in the south-west corner of Co Monaghan, a place called Magheracloone.

The blindness came later, the result of smallpox when he was two, and it probably marked him for a career in music. Details of his early life are scarce, unfortunately. But by age 17, when the Earl of Moira arranged for him to be sent to an institution, where he first learned English, Byrne was going up in the world.

Benefiting from a revival of harping, led by Northern presbyterians including the United Irishmen, he studied the instrument in Belfast, where he was later presented with a special harp in recognition of his diligence, his “good deportment as a scholar”, and his proficiency in “60 tunes”.

He was also championed by his landlords, the Shirleys, through whose influence the doors of Irish and English high society were opened to him: including even Queen Victoria’s. In keeping with the aristocratic traditions of harping, Byrne played few public concerts, even at the height of his career. Instead he gave private paid recitals in the homes of the gentry, staying with them for periods and then travelling on.

An exception was in 1856 in Scotland when pickpockets relieved him of £14/10-, the savings of a summer, which he was carrying, according to a news report, “with the characteristic heedlessness of an Irishman”.

Friends suggested that, to compensate, he should give a public performance. A capacity attendance thus paid to hear his repertoire of old airs, songs, jokes, and stories, and was enraptured. "That a poor blind man should have sustained close attention and interest for nearly two hours is indeed something remarkable," wrote the Belfast Newsletter.

There was more one “last of the great Irish harpers”, unsurprisingly. Byrne was part of a tradition stretching back a thousand years. But it had been dying for centuries, a process speeded up by Elizabeth I when, after Kinsale, she ordered her military to “hang the harpers [and] burn their instruments”.

Even so, during his lifetime, Byrne was routinely described as the man with whom the saga ended. And as music historian Keith Sanger notes: “Patrick Byrne certainly was the last of the line of harpers whose traditional status came from playing to the top of the social tree.” He appears to have been reconciled to this role. He had no pupil to bequeath his harp to, asking instead that the Shirleys should display it for future generations.

Byrne survived just long enough to merit mention in a then-new Dublin newspaper, The Irish Times, which in 1860 called him "a venerable relic of a bygone age" and "the last and best representative of Ireland's ancient harp music". He died in Dundalk in 1862 and was initially buried there before, in keeping with his wishes, being reinterred in Carrickmacross.

His native town also now honours him with Féile Patrick Byrne, which begins this Friday. It features a free lecture on his life, music workshops, and a Saturday night concert by the superb young Irish band Teada (aptly meaning “strings”).

But getting back to Byrne’s burial place, the mystery of which, as I say, continues. Not even the oracle of south Monaghan, historian Larry McDermott, can explain it.

The known facts are that, some time during his life, Patrick Byrne converted to the Church of Ireland, and asked to be buried in Carrick’s “new Protestant cemetery”. Maybe the old Famine burial ground was so designated for a time. Maybe there was a dispute with relatives and the grave-site was a religious compromise. I don’t know.

At least Byrne’s family history is clearer, and this is where the aforementioned twist arises. He appears to have had no children. And although his father’s three marriages left him several half-siblings – including a brother Christopher, who fought in the US civil war – Byrne had only one full sibling: his sister Alice.

Alice married a man named Ward and they had a son James, the main lineal descendant, to whom the harper bequeathed his “watch, seals, and other watch appendages”. James Ward in turn had four children, including Annie.

And – it’s a small world, etc – but it turns out that, as a child, I knew Annie Ward. I remember visiting her on her death-bed, in fact, because she was my grandmother. This appears to make me a descendant of the last of the great Irish harpers: which, needless to say, is a crippling responsibility. I wonder if it’s too late to start classes.

More details about Féile Patrick Byrne are available at www.myspace.com/patrickbyrnefestival or from Finian on 087-2396665