Colonel O'Hara

 COLONEL O'HARA. Irish, Planxty. F Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. Composed by blind Irish harper Turlough O'Carolan (1670-1738). Donal O'Sullivan believes the title may refer to Sir Charles O'Hara of County Mayo, made Baron Tyrawly in 1706, who had a distinguished career as a military officer in Spain. The tune was played by County Leitrim harper Charles Fanning (1736-c. 1809) at the 1792 Belfast Harp Festival, where it was noted by Edward Bunting (appearing in his MS 33, book 3). Fanning was an excellent harper and won not only the Belfast but the three Granard harp competitions as well. Fanning was groomed for a life of entertaining the gentry by a County Tyrone patroness, but lost her patronage and support when he married her kitchenmaid. He was rescued by another patron, the Reverend Sir Henry Harvy Bruce, Bishop of Derry (who also patronized harper Denis Hampson), although the good bishop apparently could not or did not see fit to keep him very well. Fanning complained to another harper, Arthur O'Neill, who was passing through the area and inquired as to Fanning's health, that he was so poor and thin that a goose quill could be blown through his cheek! Fanning tired of this meagre existence and finally found a patron in Mr. Pratt of King's Court, County Cavan, who gave the harper a house and garden, a few acres of land, and grazing for four cows in the demesne. The grant was proofed by a letter he gave to Fanning. Unfortunately for the unlucky man, Pratt died and his son refused to honor his father's bequest to the harper; moreover, Fanning lost the letter to an unscrupulous or incompetent lawyer he had engaged to help. Printed sources: Complete Collection of Carolan's Irish Tunes, 1984; No. 129, pp. 92-93. Heymann (Legacy of the 1792 Belfast Harp Festival), 1992; pp. 18-20. O'Sullivan (Carolan: The Life, Times and Music of an Irish Harper), 1958; No. 129, pp. 170-171 Green Linnet GLCD 1128, Brendan Mulvihill & Donna Long - "The Morning Dew" (1993).

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