Classical Notes: Mansions festival buoyed by growing popularity

Is that, I asked myself, the harp that was heard “once through Tara’s halls”, or the one that the Minstrel Boy “slung behind” him when he was going to war? Maybe it was both, we decided, as we inspected Thomas Moore’s harp at the Royal Irish Academy in Dawson Street, Dublin, where the Great Music in Irish Houses Festival (June 13-18) launched its programme of events.

Anybody even remotely interested in Irish music ...