Affairs of the Harp
John O’Regan – Folk Roots – March ’98
Kathleen Loughnane, the face behind the harp of Galway quartet Dordán, finally gets around to delivering a solo album. Affairs of the Harp is a harp album pure and simple, but one with a difference. For a start, it calls on names like Alec Finn, Sharon Shannon, Seán Ryan and her Dordán compatriot Martina Goggin, to lend a subtle hand to the proceedings. The combined efforts of all involved yield a sweetly uplifting result. I’ll Mend Your Pots and Kettles, O! has Sharon Shannon’s accordeon and Martina Goggin’s djembe and Alec Finn’s bouzouki together in a Sliabh Luachra/Cape Breton outcome. Kathleen’s own deft touches are a sublime pleasure, from the pronounced tune playing of President Garfield to the melancholic slow air The Wild Geese. A song air from Co. Tipperary, Iníon an Fhaoit ón nGleann, blends Seán Ryan’s whistle with Kathleen’s harp in the most outwardly Dordán sounding track on display and Alec Finn’s bouzouki adds an Elizabethan air to Cornelius Lyons’ Miss Hamilton, while O’Carolan’s presence is found in Lady Dillon, Lady Gethin and Morgan Magan.
Affairs of the Harp escapes the obvious harp album net with a choice selection of source material and some inspired playing both from the main protagonist and her special guests.
Sample Tracks from the album
"I'll mend your Pots and Pans" - (Polka)
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"The Wild Geese" - (Slow Air)
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"Harping on" among friends
The Irish Examiner (October 3, 2002). Pat Ahern
There was a time in Ireland when many harp players were submerged in layers of cliché.
Kathleen Loughnane was different, a player of quiet dignity, she saw both the harp’s place in history and its relevance to today’s music. She is perhaps best known as a member of the baroque/traditional band Dordán, but she maintains a strong independent streak.
Harping On, her second album, is a diverse collection of old and new harp tunes, along with tunes borrowed from other traditions and other instruments.
Turlough O’Carolan is represented, naturally; his Loftus Jones is a highlight. Less predictably, GF Handel is there too, along with more recent tune-makers, including Sean Ryan, Tommy Peoples and Martin Mulhaire. Indeed, some of the finest melodies here are from Kathleen’s own musical imagination.
This is nominally a solo album, but Kathleen surrounds herself with friends, among them Seamus Begley and Sharon Shannon. The results are uniformly excellent. Alec Finn, who co-produced, is ever-present. His bouzouki adds an extraordinary variety of textures, even to Handel’s Chaconne in G. Throughout, Martina Goggin adds some unobtrusive percussion via that much-abused instrument, the djembe.
Every tune must have a partner, according to the Loughnane template. Thus The Bright City, a waltz of Kathleen’s own making, is paired to Margaret O’Carroll, a waltz by Sean Ryan. The Handel piece is set alongside An Tonachán Trá/The Sandhopper, a self-modelled slip jig. The Lament for Ó Domhnaill segues into the familiar Three Sea Captains, this time in duet with Jacqueline McCarthy’s concertina. In Aisling an Oigfhear, Kathleen traces the development of this extraordinary melody into the present day quasi-anthem, The Derry Air, the Danny Boy beloved of every maudlin public house singer.
There’s just one song, but it is a centrepiece. Kathleen first heard Séamus Begley sing Bean Dubh an Ghleanna in west Kerry when she was 14. Here, she persuades the big man to re-live the performance, this time to an exquisite harp and bouzouki arrangement. The continuous regeneration of traditional music is emphasised by the presence on a number of tracks of two of her children – Catríona on accordion and Cormac on whistle and pipes.
Her Dordán comrades – Mary Bergin on whistle, Dearbhall Standún on fiddle and Martina Goggin on djembe – join in on Lúcháir on Léinn, a commissioned piece written by Kathleen to commemorate 150 years of student Enrollment at NUIG (National University of Ireland) Kathleen used to describe her debut solo album, Affairs of the Harp, as "a present to myself." Its successor is a present to the rest of us.
Sample Tracks from the album
"The Queen of the West"
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"Loftus Jones"
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