“Hang All Harpers Where Found”

Queen Elizabeth I came into power in 1558, inheriting all of the Empire’s colonial entities. Both she and King Henry VIII have been justly celebrated for their contributions to English court music in terms of patronage, and singers still perform the famous madrigals and motets of Elizabethan England. Elizabeth’s work regarding Ireland, however, reveals a different relationship to the musical arts. The government, in general, felt that Irish musicians were “seditious and dangerous persons” (Rimmer 1977: 39). Shortly before she died in 1603, Elizabeth I issued a proclamation to “Hang all harpers where found and burn the instruments” (O’Boyle 1976: 10). One by one, the upper-class bards who had been such an important part of Gaelic Irish life were killed. Some of them escaped by going “underground” with their talents, and a few harpers were left to carry on the tradition, but nowhere near the numbers that had existed before. Ireland collectively underwent an upheaval as the society that had supported the culture bearers, upon whom many people depended, was shattered.