In preparing for publication the Annals of the Irish Harpers, my constant aim has been to do justice to the memory of Edward Bunting, who rescued from oblivion the last authentic records of ancient Irish Minstrelsy. The honour of this achievement belongs rightly to him and is shared, moreover, by the town of Belfast. Here he listened to the strains of the last minstrels ; here, cheered and encouraged by an enthusiastic band of fellow workers, he lived and laboured from childhood till middle age. It is a somewhat remarkable fact that the capital of the Ulster Plantation Colony should have been the scene of such efforts to preserve the relics of the civilisation of native Gaeldom.

Edward Bunting's collections of Irish music were first brought to my notice by one who is now amongst the most venerable of Belfast citizens, the Eight Hon. Robert Young, P.O. I had then just recently completed my musical studies on the Continent, and had come home to settle in Ireland. It was news to me that this commercial centre had anything to boast of in connection with music.

When in course of time I became Hon. Secretary of the Irish Folk-Song Society (founded 1904), Mr Young contributed to our journal an article on Bunting and his work, which awakened great interest. Meantime through the medium of the Feis Ceoil and the Gaelic Revival in Ireland renewed attention was directed to the harp. Belfast was not behindhand, the instrument again became popular on [vii] concert platforms, and indeed occasionally a picturesque band of harps graced the orchestra of the Ulster Hall.

In consequence a friend wrote asking me to select a harp for her daughter, at one of the leading London warehouses. I went there, and, ha\ing selected an instrument, was about to leave, when it came into my head to ask, “Do any old wandering harpers ever come in here to buy strings?” The attendant smiled somewhat cynically, and I felt that my question had been a foolish one, for the days of the last minstrels are surely over. “Well, no,” he said; “we have no such customers; but, by the way, a gentleman was in here not long ago, who would interest you. He bought a harp, and when giving the order he said, “It is only right that I should have a harp in my house; for it was my grandfather who preserved the music of the ancient Irish harpers.”

Eagerly I asked for the name and address of this purchaser, who turned out to be Dr Louis MacRory of Battersea. A brief correspondence resulted in his inviting me to his home to inspect certain papers belonging to his grandfather, who was no other than Edward Bunting. On my arrival at the doctor's house, he met me with the abrupt remark, “Now I hope you are an Irish woman, for I think some one from Ireland should handle my grandfather's papers.”

When I said that I came from Belfast, his countenance cleared, for had not Bunting's labours from first to last been connected with it, and he seemed satisfied that he had found a fit and proper person to go over the old manuscripts.

At this time I hoped for nothing more than some gleanings of unpublished airs and some personal memoirs and letters for the Irish Folk-Song Journal; but as I went through the mass of documents which Dr MacRory put before me, I saw that a great amount of unpublished material had survived. Here were musical note-books, letters, faded documents, which demanded most careful consideration. I grew more [viii] and more absorbed in the study of them, and in the end the doctor decided that I must take the box away with me, and investigate them at leisure. Then he added to my delight by telling me that there were other papers in a box in Dublin, and that he would try to obtain them for me. He explained that Edward Bunting had two daughters, Mary Ann and Sarah. The latter, who married Mr K. MacEory of Belfast, was his own mother. Mary Ann Bunting, who married a Mr James Wright in Dublin, had a daughter Florence. This lady is the wife of an eminent Dublin architect, Thomas Manley Deane, son of Sir Thomas Newenham Deane. Certain of the Bunting manuscripts were in her possession.

On the occasion of my next visit to Ireland, I went armed with an introduction from Dr MacEory and interviewed Mrs Deane, with the satisfactory result that another box of Bunting manuscripts was confided to me.

I may here in passing comment on the fact that Bunting's family has been largely connected with engineering and architecture. His father was a mining engineer, his son Anthony, who died in early manhood, showed great talent as an engineer, and his grand-daughter's marriage connected her with a family in which architectural skill has shown itself hereditary. Her husband is now Sir Thomas Deane, having been knighted by King George, on the occasion of the opening of the College of Science, Dublin, of which he was one of the architects.

The investigation of all this mass of papers occupied me pleasantly for many months. In the note-books I found many beautiful airs which Bunting had never published, and which I drew on for the Irish Folk-Song Journal. Some I arranged and published as Songs of the Irish Harpers with words in English and Irish. However, as I pored over the manuscripts, I felt that there was material here for a book. The manuscript “Life” of Arthur O'Neill, the harper, [ix] deserved to be published in full, though Bunting, with the assistance of Samuel Ferguson, had used many anecdotes from it in the preface to his last collection. The journal of Patrick Lynch had never seen the light, and Dr MacDonnell's letters were of great interest. Above all, I felt that a memoir of Bunting was called for, and so embarked upon the task of authorship.

From first to last I have relied much on the help of my sister, Miss Alice Milligan, who has had considerable literary experience and a knowledge of Irish history.

Amongst books of authority on our subject matter, I must acknowledge indebtedness to Eugene O'Curry's Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, Benn's History of Belfast, and Old Belfast, by K. M. Young, M.E.I.A. (the latter volume was invaluable as a guide to local history), Dr P. W. Joyce's various works and writings of Dr Hyde and Dr Sigerson, and the Autobiography of Wolfe Tone,”[ edited by K. Barry O'Brien. Dr W. H. Grattan Flood's History of Irish Music, was always at hand for reference. From it I have quoted an account of Patrick Lynch, a Clare man and author of a Gaelic Grammar, whom he takes to be the same as the Lynch who taught Irish in Belfast and toured Connaught for Bunting. It is only right to state here that this has been questioned. Mr Seumas Casaide, a Dublin Gaelic scholar and Bibliophile, has prepared a short biography of Lynch, the Clare grammarian, and was not aware that he had ever been in Belfast. He assumed that Bunting's Lynch was an entirely different person. On examining and comparing handwriting, his belief was somewhat shaken, as the script of Lynch in the Bunting papers bore a decided resemblance to that of the Clareman. Moreover, Mr Casaide allowed that there were a few years of the life of his Lynch which he could not account for, and which might have been occupied by his residence in Belfast and County Down. On looking through the Irish poetry taken down by Lynch [x] in Connaught, his opinion again changed and he asserted that the words were spelled to represent the Northern pronunciation of Irish, and that no Clareman that ever was born or schooled, could have spelt like that. So there the mystery remains unsolved, and perhaps I have erred in naming Lynch “The Pentaglot Preceptor.” There may have been two men, where I, with Dr Grattan Flood's assistance, have given an account of one. In any case he stands forth in these pages a typical preceptor of the gay old times, when schoolmasters were itinerants like the harpers, ere ever a National Board had arisen to cabin and confine them behind the doors of school-houses.

For information on different points I am indebted to Mr Isaac Ward of Belfast (an inveterate reader of old newspapers, and great authority on all connected with the history of the city), Dr the Rt. Hon. Michael Cox, P.C., Sir William Whitla, Mrs Chambers Bunten, Miss Lucy Broadwood, Sir Charles Brett, and above all to Dr Louis MacRory and Sir Thomas and Lady Deane for prompt response to all questionings.

The time is ripe to recall Bunting's labour and claim for him a full meed of fame. The subject of national folk music has been recognised as of much importance by the school boards of England and Wales. In the United States, which I visited recently, a mingling of races, makes possible a comparative study of the folk-song of many nations, and I found interest on the subject keen, and many educational agencies at work in this sphere. In New York that most cosmopolitan of cities, Dr Leipziger, superintendent of the lecturing department of the public schools, is full of interest in the subject, and it is kept prominently before the public.

Where the world's folk music is studied and compared, that of Ireland is assured of due attention, and the Irish population in the United States will have reason to boast of their heritage. [xi]

In conclusion let me say that the dedication of this volume to Lord Shaftesbury, is in keeping with its aim and purpose, for his Irish kindred come into the story. It was to a Lady Donegall that Moore dedicated his melodies ; and Lord Belfast (Lord Shaftesbury's own grandfather) encouraged and assisted Bunting in his final enterprise, and brought his work before the notice of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort. The next Lord Belfast was intensely musical, had talent as a composer and supported the Belfast Anacreonotic Society, which had good reason to deplore his early death, and honoured his memory by a requiem concert. His nephew to whom this volume is dedicated, sustains these musical traditions, has done much for the Belfast Philharmonic Society, the Irish Folk Society, and occasionally appears as a vocalist on a concert platform. He has, moreover, held the office of Lord Mayor of Belfast, thus strengthening his connection with the city whose musical history is recorded here.

CHARLOTTE MILLIGAN FOX. BELFAST, September 1911