Nobber remembers O'Carolan in weekend of harp music

Traditional Irish group, Lúnasa, were the headline act at this year's O'Carolan Harp, Heritage and Cultural Festival held in Nobber at the weekend. The festival began with an official opening by Seamus Mac Cormaic, uachtarán of Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann. Patrick Ball, from Califonia, who is one of the premier Celtic harp players in the world, then performed a solo musical theatre piece about Turlough O'Carolan, a show that he wrote with Peter Glazer. Friday's opening concert began with performances by the Meath Harp School, under the direction of Dearbhaill Finnegan and music by the O'Carolan branch of Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann Under-12 Grúpa Cheoil. Among those who attended the festival was Elizabeth Hunt Scwartz and her husband Chuck, from Worcester, Vermont, USA. Mrs Scwartz is on the committee of the Vermont (USA) O'Carolan Festival and this was her first time in Nobber. On Saturday, instrumental workshops were held in O'Carolan College in tin whistle, fiddle, button accordion, banjo and harp. Harp workshops and harp competitions also took place in O'Carolan College. An historical tour of O'Carolan Country was given by Seamus MacGabhann, of NUI Maynooth, who is originally from Nobber. The annual traditional concert in O'Carolan College on Saturday night was headlined this year by traditional Irish group Lúnasa, who released their seventh album Lá Nua (New day) last year. The show also included the Meath Harp Ensemble which was formed in 2003. Sunday began with the annual Aifreann Tradisiúnta in St John the Baptist Church. During the Mass, the committee remembered its members who have passed on, including Teresa Kelly, a very valued member who passed away in February, while harp music was played by Meath Harp School members under direction of Dearbhail Finnegan. Piper Ruairi Somers from Navan, who is a member of the Fintan Lalor Pipe Band in Dublin, led a walk to the O'Carolan Monument beside the fire station. Minister of State, Shane McEntee, laid a wreath in memory of Tony Finnegan and other committee members who have passed on. Mr McEntee congratulated "everybody involved in the whole weekend", saying that it is an important annual event. Tony Finnegan was husband to Ann Finnegan, and he was chairman of the O'Carolan Harp Festival at the time of his passing in December 2003. He was a founding member of the O'Carolan Festival and a founding member in 1979 of the Kilmainhamwood branch of Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Éireann. Later on Sunday, Prof Séamus Mac Gabhann gave a talk on 'The Threshold of Modernity: the Ordinance Survey in Meath' in Nobber Community Hall and the festival concluded with a ceilí in Nobber Community Hall with music by Davey Joe Fallon and Carousel. In his talk on Sunday, Prof Mac Gabhann said it was deeply ironic then that modern Irish identity owes so much to the Ordnance Survey of the 1830s. The splendid maps have since been the basis of advances in national administration, development and modernisation. Irish cultural identity has been enhanced by the broad study of the nation's heritage conducted by John O'Donovan and his able fellow surveyors. For instance, at Tara, O'Donovan reconciled the existing grass-covered mounds on the hill with the ancient manuscript descriptions from the era of Brian Boru. At Tailteann, O'Donovan was just in time to record the folk traditions of the ancient monuments and the local fair. The cultural harvest garnered by O'Donovan and his colleagues came at a crucial time, less than 10 years before the Famine. Modernisation and language-shift were sweeping away a heritage that reached back to the middle ages and beyond. In the absence of proper research, bizarre theories of Irish identity had flourished. Now the scientific observation and scholarly analysis of the Ordnance Survey scotched such falsity and a reliable version of native heritage was furnished to the thinkers, writers and leaders who were to forge a new Irish identity in English in the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, he said.