Glucksman Ireland House presents
“Travels With My Harp” with singer and harpist Mary O’Hara
Friday, October 9th at 7pm
at Glucksman Ireland House NYU
A rare opportunity to spend an intimate evening with iconic singer and harpist, Mary O’Hara. By a couple of years, she preceded the folk era that many associate with Joan Baez, The Clancy Brothers and Bob Dylan. Liam Clancy in his 2002 autobiography, Memoirs of an Irish Troubadour, writes about how the singing of Mary O’Hara had inspired him and others of the period.
Her harp-playing revived the tradition of the Irish harp as an accompanying instrument – a tradition dead in Ireland by the 1950s. Mary O’Hara retired from performing in 1996 and, two years later, moved to Africa. She had done the same almost three decades earlier after the sudden death of her young poet husband, Richard Selig. At that time, however, she joined a contemplative order of nuns, emerging after 12 years to take up her musical career, recording thirteen more records, hosting a series on the BBC and on ITV in the UK and writing three best-selling books, one of them her autobiography, The Scent of the Roses.