Frank Harte

(1934-2005)

Frank Harte was born and lived Chapelizod, a small village on the banks of the river Liffey, Dublin, Ireland. He worked as an architect professionally, but is honoured now as one of the greatest balladeers and song collectors in the Irish musical tradition. Liffey can refer to: The River Liffey through Dublin, Ireland Liffey (a town) and nearby Liffey Falls in Tasmania, Australia This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Dublin (Irish: Baile Átha Cliath), is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Ireland, located near the midpoint of Irelands east coast, at the mouth of the River Liffey and at the centre of the Dublin Region. ...

His introduction to Irish singing came, he said, from a chance listening to an itinerant who was selling ballad sheets at a fair in Boyle, County Roscommon. He has become a great exponents of the Dublin street ballad, which he prefered to sing unaccompanied. He is widely known for his singing - his Dublin accent was laced with a rich nasal quality - and also as a collector of songs and the stories behind them. He assembled a database of over 15,500 recordings. He began collecting early in life. He remembers buying ballads from a man who sold them by the sheet at the side of the Adelphi Cinema. Roscommon (Ros Comáin in Irish) is the county town of County Roscommon in the Republic of Ireland. ...

He once wrote about his song collecting: "I have been gathering songs around the country for a good number of years now, and seldom have I come across singers who are unwilling to part with their songs. Probably they realise as I do, that the songs do not belong to them, just as they did not belong to the people they got them from." To augment the point on another occasion he quoted the poet Brendan Kennelly: All songs are living ghosts And long for a living voice

Proud of his musical heritage he believed that this need not be a sectarian or nationalist preserve: "The Orange song is just as valid an expression as the Fenian." He likes to sing out of his love for a song than a desire to please an audience: "A traditional singer is not singing for a commercial audience so he doesn't have to please an audience."

He has recorded several albums and made numerous television and radio appearances. He was a regular at the Sunday morning sessions in the Brazen Head pub along with the late Liam Weldon. He is also an enthusiastic supporter of the Goilin Singers Club. A regular at singers' sessions in Ireland, he has appeared at clubs, seminars and festivals in France, Britain and America where he is in demand as a teacher.

Discography

Dublin Street Songs/Through Dublin City, 1967; Topic And Listen to my Song, 1975; Hummingbird. The Hungry Voice - The Song Legacy of Ireland's Great Hunger Daybreak and a Candle End, 1987 1798 - The First Year of Liberty, 1998; Hummingbird. My Name is Napolean Bonaparte

Bibliography