Carolan's Cup: A Song History
Turlough O'Carolan (1670–1738) lost his sight to smallpox at eighteen, trained as a harper with the backing of his patron Mrs. MacDermott Roe, and spent his life travelling Ireland as a harper and composer; roughly 220 of his pieces survive.[1] Carolan's Cup is number 185 in Donal O'Sullivan's catalogue of his music, published in Carolan: The Life, Times and Music of an Irish Harper (1958) and again in the Complete Collection of Carolan's Irish Tunes (1984).[2] It is also listed under the Irish title Bolgam Chearbhalláin.[3]
John Egan, Portable Harp, Dublin, 1819. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Made long after Carolan’s death; shown for the instrument, and it has no connection to the tune.
The Traditional Tune Archive reports O'Sullivan's view that the melody is an adapted form of an older folk tune current in the harper's day, associated with the Irish title Ar bhruach na carraige báine, which Carolan may have played and reshaped; the Archive places it among his drinking pieces.[2] The Archive's notated version comes from O'Farrell's Pocket Companion, volume IV, which it dates to about 1810; in the sources consulted here, no earlier printing could be confirmed.[2]
Recordings include Dolores Keane and John Faulkner's Sail Óg Rua (early 1980s), harper Michelle Mulcahy's Suaimhneas, and Trioc's A Fair Wind (2017).[3]
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