Charleville and the cruit

CHARLEVILLE has had a long association with the ancient musical instrument the harp, or in the Irish language the Cruit, going back to the time of Sean Clárach Mac Domhnaill, the Jacobite poet who was born in nearby Churchtown, but spent most of his adult life in Charleville.

Sean Clárach died in 1754 in Charleville, known to him as an Ráth, and is buried in the town’s Holy Cross Cemetery.

Sean Clárach was reputed to have had a farm, with his wife Agnes Whyte, in Kiltoohig, just west of Charleville, and here he held the Bardic Court, as Chief Poet of Munster. This was a great fathering of poets and musicians, and among them the harpers of the time. These courts of poetry were also held in Bruree, which became the main venue just over the border in Co. Limerick, until 1746, before finally moving to Croom, the home of the poet Séan Ó Tuama.

He, along with Aindreas Mac Craith of Kilmallock and Sean Clárach were known as Filí na Máigh.

These conventions of bardic minstrels served to keep alive the music and language of ancient Ireland in the Jacobit in the eighteenth century. That era also gave us harp tunes, set to songs such as Róisín Dubh, Gráinne Mhaol, Droimin Donn Dhílis and Caitlín Ni Houlacháin, which are popular to this day.

It is fitting, therefore, that Craobh An Ráth branch of Comhaltas Ceoltoirí Eireann should currently include the teaching of the harp, Ireland’s ancient instrument, to children attending their tuition classes in traditional Irish music at the C.B.S. Primary School, Baker’s Road, Charleville.

The classes on the cruit or Irish harp are given by Bruree All-Ireland winning harpist, Anna Sheehan at her home in Bruree, keeping up the tradition of the harp and the Co. Limerick village.