O’Sullivan, Donal. Carolan: The Life Times and Music of an Irish Harper.

Cork: Ossian Publications, 2001. Revised edition (first published 1958). Large 8vo. pp. xvi, 378. Illustrated throughout, including portrait frontispiece of the harper Turlough O’Carolan and numerous musical examples. Black cloth, spine and upper cover lettered in silver. In the original illustrated dust jacket. A very good copy in the original dust jacket. Light shelf wear to jacket; binding sound and internally clean.

A substantial and authoritative study of the life, historical context, and musical legacy of the celebrated Irish harper Turlough O’Carolan (1670–1738). First published in 1958, Donal O’Sullivan’s work quickly became recognised as the definitive scholarly treatment of Carolan’s life and compositions. Combining biography, historical analysis, and musicology, the work reconstructs Carolan’s career as Ireland’s last great itinerant harper, whose compositions bridged the Gaelic musical tradition and the influence of continental baroque styles.

The volume is divided into four principal sections: the historical narrative of Carolan’s life and patrons; a collected corpus of the tunes attributed to him; detailed scholarly notes on the music and sources; and the important memoir of Arthur O’Neill, a later Irish harper whose reminiscences preserve valuable details of the harp tradition. The present edition also incorporates later scholarship and editorial refinements, making it the most complete single-volume study of Carolan and his surviving musical legacy.

Carolan’s compositions — including such celebrated airs as Carolan’s Concerto and Sí Bheag, Sí Mhór — remain central to the Irish traditional repertoire, and this work has long served as the essential reference for musicians, historians, and scholars of Irish music.

A fine scholarly production and a cornerstone work in the study of Irish traditional music and eighteenth-century Gaelic culture.

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