Join us for St Brigid’s Day as we celebrate the rich history and culture of the Irish Harp tradition.

Award winning harpist Dr Helen Lawlor will be performing with vocalist Dr Sandra Joyce. Alongside some wonderful performances, we will delve into the stories of the women who shaped the Irish Harpist tradition.

Dr Helen Lawlor (neé Lyons) is a musician and academic, specialising in Irish harping. She specialises in research on music in Ireland with a focus on the musical practice, education and history of the harp. She is author of Irish harping 1900–2010 (2012) and co-editor with Sandra Joyce of Harp studies: perspectives on the Irish harp (2016). Her work is also published in The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland, Ancestral Imprints, Sonus, American Harp Journal, JSMI and JMI. She a member of the editorial board of the JSMI and is Secretary of Performance Research Ireland. Helen holds a BMusEd (TCD), MMus (UCD) and a PhD (UCD) for which she was an Ad Astra Research Scholarship recipient.

Helen has performed and taught traditional Irish harping at numerous international music festivals including the Interceltic Festival (Lorient), Scoil Samhraidh Willie Clancy, Blas and The Gaelic Roots festival in Boston.

Dr. Sandra Joyce is co-editor, with Dr Helen Lawlor, of Harp Studies: Perspectives on the Irish Harp, a publication which focuses on diverse aspects of the Irish harp tradition. She has established the TradSong Research Cluster at UL, which is a collection of scholars working in the area of Irish traditional song and related areas.

A singer and bodhrán player, she has performed internationally, most recently in the Irish Cultural Centre, Boston and the Irish Embassy, Beijing. Her research focuses primarily on the Irish harp and song traditions.