Affairs of the Harp

Best-seller at the Edinburgh Harp Festival 1998 – Sounding Strings

Paddy Kehoe – RTE Guide – Christmas edition
Working in the baroque/traditional furrow that her normal band Dordán also work in, harpist Kathleen Loughnane calls on the services of sympathetic accompanists Alec Finn, bouzouki and guitar, Seán Ryan, tin whistle, accordionists Sharon Shannon and Mary Staunton, and Martina Goggin on the djembe for her new collection. The album opens with the stately elegance of Miss Hamilton’s, composed by Cornelius Lyons, a contemporary of O’Carolan’s from Kerry. I’ll Mend Your Pots and Kettles, O! is a lively polka, sourced from Séamus Ennis, and paired with Kathleen’s own composition, The Open Road. Kathleen wrings understated melancholy from the solo lament, The Wild Geese from the Bunting collection, which commemorates the exodus of the Irish nobility after the Treaty of Limerick in 1691. There are delightful pieces by O’Carolan, Lady Dillon and Lady Gethin, in this fine album of contrasting moods.


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.

Music session with Sean Ryan (Whistle) and Alec Finn (Bousouki)

Harping On – Ossian

Harping On is a Dedalus-style amble through the urban and rural geography of Galway, with the odd detour for sustenance both south (Sliabh Luachra) and north (Sweden!). Kathleen Loughnane, founder member of Dordán, is a harpist capable of surgically excising the pretty-please trademarks of the instrument that have long mired it in a curious limbo where nunnery meets confession box. She has the good sense to gather a mighty gabháil of musicians around her who prod and cajole the harp, impishly loping through An Cathair Gheal, tiptoeing in between the spaces of Tommy People’s Gráinne’s Jig and reflecting mournfully on Bean Dubh An Ghleanna. Seamus Begley, Alec Finn, Sharon Shannon and a rake of other bowsies join the peregrinations with elfin glee. A music cartographer’s delight.
www.ossian.ie
Siobhán Long


Hot Press 02-10-2002

KATHLEEN LOUGHNANE
Harping On (Reiskmore Music)

The harp gets a bit of a bad rap in Irish circles, owing to its associations in the national psyche with comely fair-haired maidens trilling their way through saccharine ditties. In Kathleen Loughnane’s hands, though, it’s a precision instrument, swift and sparkling. Alec Finn of De Danann fame co-produced this album with Loughnane, and throughout most of it his bouzouki chimes in with complex countermelodies, its thin, metallic tones contrasting with the fuller sound of the harp. The effect is interesting, but becomes ever so slightly intrusive after a while. The inimitable Seamus Begley contributes a plaintive version of the classic love song ‘Bean Dubh an Ghleanna’, and other guests include such illustrious names as Sharon Shannon, keyboard player Brian McGrath and whistle players Mary Bergin and Sean Ryan. All the same, I found myself longing to hear Loughnane’s deft fingerwork left to hold its own for longer than a few introductory solo notes it’s allotted on the tunes presented here.