Strike The Gray Harp: A Song History

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In the Irish tune indexes consulted here, this three-part double jig goes by "Strike the Gay Harp"; neither the Traditional Tune Archive nor irishtune.info lists the spelling "Gray" among its names.[1][2] The Archive traces the melody to "Jackson's Night Cap," printed by Samuel Lee in Dublin around 1774 in a collection of tunes by the uilleann piper Walker "Piper" Jackson, to whom it is attributed.[3] Its best-known title comes from Thomas Moore, who set his song "The Night Dance," beginning with the words of the tune's present name, to the old air "The Nightcap."[1] The song appeared in the tenth number of Moore's Irish Melodies.[4]

Round portrait miniature in a gold frame of a young woman in a white dress with red ribbons, her hands on the strings of a harp

Joseph Marie Bouton, A Woman Playing a Harp, ivory, 1788–1823. A woman playing the harp in a portrait miniature of about 1800, shown for the harp of the title; it has no connection to the tune.

The tune turns up under several other names, among them "The Night Dance," "The Piper's Welcome," "Strike the Young Harp" and "Fitzpatrick's Jig," the last used by the Bronx fiddler Martin Mulvihill, probably in honor of New York accordionist Tim Fitzpatrick.[1] J. T. Surenne included it in The Songs of Ireland without Words (Edinburgh, 1854), and Francis O'Neill printed it in both Music of Ireland (1903) and The Dance Music of Ireland (1907).[3][1] Sources differ on its key: the Archive's main entry and irishtune.info give D major, while the Archive's entry under "The Night Dance" sets it in C major.[1][2][3] The earliest recording irishtune.info indexes is a 1934 track by fiddler Patrick Sweeney with accordionist Billy McElligott, and later versions come from Bobby Casey, Seamus Tansey, the Chieftains on Chieftains 3, and flute player Kevin Crawford.[2][1] The Comhaltas archive lists eleven tracks of it, several of them medleys that pair it with "The Legacy" or with "Lough Gowna."[5]

A tune listed as "Strike The Gray Harp," probably this jig under a variant spelling, appears in Aaron O'Rourke's Irish Session Tunes, Volume 2, a Fingers Of Steel collection of Irish session jigs, reels and polkas for mountain dulcimer, all in DAD tuning.[6]

Our book that contains the song "Strike The Gray Harp"

Sources

  1. Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation: Strike the Gay Harp".
  2. irishtune.info: "Strike the Gay Harp".
  3. Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation: Night Dance (The)".
  4. Queen's University Belfast, Moore's Irish Melodies: Texts and Illustrations: "The Night Dance".
  5. Comhaltas Archive: "Strike the Gay Harp".
  6. Fingers Of Steel: "Aaron O'Rourke, Irish Session Tunes, Volume 2".
  7. Image: Joseph Marie Bouton, A Woman Playing a Harp, ivory, 1788–1823. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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