Planxty Fanny Power: A Song History
"Fanny Power" is one of the tunes of Turlough O'Carolan, the blind harper and composer born in County Meath in 1670, who lost his sight to smallpox at eighteen and travelled widely in Ireland as a harper before his death in 1738.[1] He wrote it for Frances (Fanny) Power, daughter and heiress of David and Elizabeth Power of Coorheen, near Loughrea in County Galway. Carolan called her the Swan of the Shore, because her father's house stood at the edge of Lough Rea.[2] She married Richard Trench of Garbally in March 1732.[2][3] In the verses he wrote for her, Carolan hopes to live to dance at her wedding, which suggests the piece dates from before then.[2] Her son William was made Baron Kilconnel in 1797, and the later Earls of Clancarty descend from him.[2]
John Egan, portable harp, Dublin, 1819. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0).
In Carolan's titles, "planxty" stands in front of a patron's name as a sort of greeting or tribute. According to Donal O'Sullivan, widely regarded as the foremost authority on Carolan, the harper rarely wrote the word himself; it was publishers after him who added it to many of his tunes.[4] Its origin is unclear. O'Sullivan proposed a link with the Latin plangere, "to strike," as in striking the harp. Others have suggested an Irish word for praise pieces, a corruption of the toast sláinte ("health"), or simply a nonsense word, and O'Sullivan himself judged that no explanation fits every case.[4]
The tune was in print in Dublin by 1780 in John Lee's A Favourite Collection, and the harper Rose Mooney played it at the Belfast Harp Festival of 1792.[2] Edward Bunting included it in The Ancient Music of Ireland (1840), and Francis O'Neill included it in Music of Ireland (1903).[2] G major is the usual key, although Bunting set it in D. It is set as an air in 3/4 or 6/8 time.[2]
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