Open 10:30–5:00, Tuesday – Saturday
Drogheda Traditional Music Weekend is celebrating 28 years this year from Friday 22 November until Sunday 24 November. It will encompass events throughout Drogheda featuring some of Ireland’s most esteemed traditional singers and musicians as well as a collection of our best local talent.
This illustrated lecture by Vivienne Conway, who conducted extensive research on the subject of the Drogheda Harp Society and its involvement with the Temperance movement in Drogheda in the early 1840s. Harper Jaymee Martin, from Dromiskin, will join Vivienne and perform some of the harp tunes that were played by local harpists at the Society’s first public concert held on 19th February 1843, at The Mayoralty Rooms Drogheda which was an important moment in the revival of interest in the instrument locally and nationally.
This research by Vivienne is referenced regularly by writers and commentators on the Irish Harp. The lecture will throw some light on the social and political history of the Harp Society and will look at the main functions of it which were the encouragement of the abstinence from alcohol, the promotion of a positive national identity through the revival of an interest in the Irish Harp and the provision of musical education for the children of some of the 13,000 members of the Drogheda New Abstinence Society at that time.
