Just Harping On

Photo: Bart Hanlon

Yes, you read correctly at the bottom of this post, we were only five at last week's session, in fact we were really "four twice" as my grandmother used to say about a family that lost a child and gained a new one soon after. We really need to see some new faces, and for some of you old hands to come and join us. Yes, I know we have a reasonable number of regulars but it only takes a few to have something else on and we are down to a skeleton crew. We didn't even hold our "famous" raffle, so you can tell that things were bad.

Nevertheless we had a pretty good evening with some of us singing unusual songs around the edge of our repertoires which made for some excitement.

Colin was MC and Derek started us off by taking up his own self-imposed theme of harps. His first song on this theme was The Minstrel Boy (Thomas Moore - Roud 13867). Derek continued his theme with another from Thomas Moore, The Harp That Once Through Tara's Halls (Roud 13392), impressively remembered from childhood and apparently not sung since. Next came The Twa Sisters (Roud 8, Child 10). The Ballad Of James Larkin (Donagh McDonagh) was next and generated some interest for it's phrase "The harp was buried beneath the crown", which reminded Mike of a shanty called The Harp Without A Crown, which he said was a puzzle because, while it seems to be a true shanty, it cannot be traced to any period earlier than the very last days of sail in the early 20th century. Derek's final harp contribution was a funny story of a man who died and went to heaven and became "chocker with harpin'".