IRISH MUSIC. Guided by the authority of Irish ecclesiastical and secular literature, we are able to follow with certainty the general history of Irish music to a period much earlier than the introduction of Christianity into Ire land. In the ancient records of Ireland music blends itself so intimately with the life of the people that its history is as old as the history of the Irish race itself.
The old Irish musicians, so far as we are aware, used no musical notation. It is certain, indeed, that the airs forming the great body of Irish music are of very remote antiquity; but we are not able to trace their exact form and setting farther back than the time when they first began to be written down. In this respect the Irish are in exactly the same posi tion as their Scotch neighbois. The ancient Irish evidently possessed a music constructed upon the old gapped quinque-grade scale, ob tained from a circle of fifths, and possessing, no doubt, the peculiar rhythm which is still characteristic of Irish melody. The introduc tion of the Cantus firmus by the Church made the Irish musicians acquainted with the diatonic scale. As this scale also originated from a circle of fifths, it only differed from the gapped scale by the addition of two notes. The secular and church music being thus constructed in similar keys, it follows that, with the exception of the rhythm, there was nothing in old Irish secular music foreign to the system of the church music. Hence the latter influenced the former to such an extent that, in the case of many of the best Irish airs, it is difficult to say whether they were composed according to the old gapped quinque-grade scale or in one of the church modes. The polish and artistic style which distinguish genuine Irish harp airs are unquestionably due to the influence of the ecclesiastical chant. Indeed it is traditionally remembered that religious hymns were sung to many of the finest old Irish airs.
In the Middle Ages the music of the Irish was strictly homophonous, and remained essen tially of the same character down to the ex tinction of the Irish harp about the time of the famine of 1847, as is proved by the use of the old keys of the gapped quinque-grade scale, more or less modified by the diatonic system of the old church chant and by the maintenance, even to the present time, of one of the most marked and antique characteristics of Irish music—the omission of the semi-tones. It
requires no discussion to show that the prin ciples of the harmony which grew up during the 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, and which have created a gulf, as it were, between modern and ancient music, could not have been applied to Irish music without obliterating all traces of the antique characteristics above mentioned, and otherwise profoundly modifying its whole character. But if the Irish Timpan resembled the Welsh Crwth of the 18th century, as has been very probably the case, the Irish must have been acquainted with the rudiments of harmony. We have no means of knowing to what extent this rude harmony was used or when it was first introduced. It was probably the primitive Orgasum introduced into Ireland from the Continent and not a species invented in Ireland itself. It may safely be assumed that the practice of harmony was of ecclesias tical origin and could only have grown up where the artistic music of the Church was not only performed but noted. Meagre as are the references to polyhonous music in Irish manu scripts, we may be sure that each successive advance in harmony became known in Ireland. Norman minstrels brought the music, the in struments and the dances of France into Ire land in the 13th and 14th centuries. During the same period Anglo-Norman ecclesiastics intro duced the polyhonous church music, then be ginning to assume great importance in the churches of France and Flanders. There is reason to believe that Discant was known among Irish ecclesiastics. The Burdoon method of singing, which still persists in remote parts of the Gaelthacht, or Gaelic-speaking portion of Ireland, is a species of Organum, or har monic accompaniment apparently derived from a French source.