The Jackson Harp: Craft, Commerce and Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Dublin

About the Talk

This lecture takes a rare nineteenth-century pedal harp by William Jackson Junior as its central focus and situates it within the thriving pedal-harp tradition that existed in Irish urban centres in the first half of the nineteenth century, particularly in Dublin. The pedal harp formed part of a European-derived art-music culture, embedded in concert life, domestic music-making, and private musical education.

Using the Jackson harp as a material and historical anchor, the lecture explores the wider network of pedal-harp making, selling, and playing in nineteenth-century Ireland. It examines how these instruments were produced and marketed, the economic and social conditions under which they were bought and sold, where they circulated, and who acquired them, with particular emphasis on the role of wealthy amateur musicians and domestic music-making. The Jackson harp is placed within the Egan–Jackson family network, a Dublin harp-making dynasty whose history was shaped not only by craftsmanship and commercial success, but also by internal family tensions and competing interests.

By centring on a single surviving instrument and examining the historical context of its manufacture and use, the lecture demonstrates how material objects can illuminate the musical, social, and economic history of the pedal harp tradition in Ireland, linking craft, commerce, and musical life in the nineteenth century.

About the Speaker

Dr Clare McCague is a professional concert harpist and scholar specialising in the nineteenth-century pedal harp tradition in Ireland. She holds a first-class honours degree in Performance from TU Dublin Conservatoire and completed her PhD at TU Dublin with the support of a Research Ireland scholarship. Her doctoral thesis, published in 2022, was the first detailed study of the nineteenth-century pedal harp tradition in Ireland and was grounded in the systematic study of surviving collections of nineteenth-century pedal harp repertoire. This repertoire formed the foundation of her research and was used to illuminate performance practice, identify practitioners, and reconstruct the social and commercial networks that supported harp making, teaching, and music-making in Ireland during this period.

This repertoire-led approach continues in her current research, which examines previously overlooked nineteenth-century pedal harp repertoire, including the works of Boleyne Reeves (1820–1905), a Cork-born concert harpist and the only Irish performer–composer known to have written original music specifically for the pedal harp in the nineteenth century. She has recorded a number of these works and is developing a longer-term project to document and record the complete surviving catalogue.

Clare currently enjoys a career as a freelance concert harpist and also lectures in harp at TU Dublin Conservatoire.

About the Series

The Dublin City Heritage Series is a free public lecture series which aims to showcase heritage projects, topics and new research across Dublin city, and is an action of the Dublin City Strategic Heritage Plan 2024 - 2029.

The series has received grant support from the Heritage Council.

This talk will be recorded and made available online at a later date.

ISL interpretation will be provided.