Mary O'Hara

< 2007 Travels With My Harp Talks
In 2005, the organisers of The World Harp Congress, held in Dublin, persuaded Mary O’Hara to give a presentation entitled Travels With My Harp. They also persuaded her to start publishing her harp accompaniments. This initiated a new phase in Mary’s multi-phased life. During her singing career, Mary never wrote down her harp accompaniments, preferring to memorise them in order to concentrate on her singing. Fetching the harp from its crate, where it had rested since she retired from singing in 1994, she restrung it and started preparing the accompaniments of more than a 100 songs she sang with harp. She is now on her third volume and busily preparing accompanying dvds.
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ABOUT MY HARPS

For many years I've owned five harps and, for a while, I also owned a double-action Erard. I gave this away when I decided to give up singing for good in 1957.

Three of my harps were made in Scotland, one in Northern Ireland and the Erard in France.

I bought my first harp from Mr. Briggs in Glasgow in 1953. Harp-making, like harp playing, had died in Ireland by then. In the following year I bought another Briggs harp and in 1975 I bought a Taylor harp, also in Scotland.

When I gave up singing in 1994 I neglected my harps but after returning from Africa in 2002, I restrung them.