ABSTRACT
As a title, Thomas Moore's Irish Melodies is something of a misnomer because the success of the series depended on more than one contributor. At this present point in time, Moore's first collaborator Sir John Stevenson receives little recognition for his part in the project, while his replacement Henry Rowley Bishop is almost completely ignored. The majority of the airs contained in Stevenson's instrumental duets appear to have been sourced from Edward Bunting's first collection, and half of the total eight are attributed to the most famous of the harpers, Turlough Carolan. Bunting often notated his airs with a lot of accompanying ornamentation, but this is rarely retained by Stevenson in the instrumental sections of the songs, suggesting that his primary source was usually Moore rather than the source notation of the airs.
