Al sudeste de Irlanda y al noreste de Dublín, está County Meath. De allí era Eleanor Plunkett.
La conocieron -sin saberlo- aquellos que oyeron hace unos días Pour aimer l'air, una entrada de esta misma bitácora. Es el primer tema de aquella selección.
El autor del aire que allí suena es el que se dice es el mejor compositor irlandés: Turlough O'Carolan (1670-1738). Arpista ciego, para más datos, y de grande talento.
Voy a dejar aquí por un tiempo estas selecciones que elegí de su obra numerosa. Muchas músicas habrán de sonar conocidas al oído atento.
Mejor así.
Noticias suficientes sobre el compositor Turlough O'Carolan hay, por ejemplo, en esta página irlandesa que refiere a una otra británica. Qué quiere usted que yo le haga...
Y para los ávidos, o quienes quieran datos sobre el particular asunto de Eleanor, también dejo estas noticias.
Eleanor Plunkett
Irish, Slow Air or Planxty (3/4 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part.
One of the most popular compositions by blind Irish harper Turlough O'Carolan (1670-1738), it was originally a song with Gaelic words, written in praise of Eleanor Plunkett of Robertstown, County Meath (near O'Carolan's birthplace of Nobber). According to Tomás Ó Máille (in Poems of Carolan, 1916), she was related to one Christopher Plunkett who appears in the 1655 Civil Survey of that county, listed as an "Irish papist" and proprietor on the premise of "an old castle." Donal O'Sullivan (1958, vol. 2, p. 95), quoting Ó Máille, writes that the story goes that some thirty members of Eleanor's family shut themselves up in their castle of Castlecome and were dispatched by boiling water. No one knows why, although O'Sullivan suggests that the tragedy was probably an exaggerated story from an unpublished deposition of 1641. At any rate, Eleanor was apparently the surviving member of the family.O'Carolan was quick to respond to criticism and somewhat defensive and touchy regarding his art, perhaps because his livelihood depended on satisfied patrons. As he was composing this song Eleanor's coachman interrupted him remaking that he had heard many of the same words O'Carolan was using in other songs. The outraged bard picked up his staff and threatened the servant with it, saying "Neither you nor any other person will ever hear more of it but what is already composed!" The Irish collector Edward Bunting (1773-1843) obtained, but never published, this melody (with the title "Nelly an Chúil Chraobhaigh") which is in his manuscript collection, c. 1800, now held at the Library of Queen's College, Belfast.
