Ursula Burns in Belfast

Season 4. Episode 1. 

Opening The Harp Chakra - The Podcast returns for a new season!

 On my recent trip to Ireland, we traveled to Northern Ireland to visit with Ursula Burns at the Harrison Hotel in Belfast. We spoke about her Harping origin story, her past performances as "The Dangerous Harpist", her upcoming book, and her connection to Scotland's Dougie MacLean. She also played a live version of the title track from her latest CD, The Secret Lives of Trees.

ursulaburns.co.uk

Ursula Burns Music https://linktr.ee/ursulaburns

The Dangerous Harpist linktr.ee/thedangerousharpist

Cloud Truck Theatre linktr.ee/cloudtrucktheatre

Buy Album on Bandcamp
ursulaburns.bandcamp.com/album/the-secret-melodies-of-trees

https://www.youtube.com/@UrsulaBurnsMusic

This Podcast is sponsored by Pedran Harps.

The Pedran Bach is a travel Harp made by Pedran Harps in Wales. They are a small company that uses naturally fallen trees to make their beautiful Harps. On my recent trip to Ireland, I played my Pedran Bach all over the country at Sessions and for recording videos. This is an excellent quality small Harp with 20 strings, a curved back, and a very pleasant voice. If you are interested in purchasing one, visit www.pedranharps.co.uk and use the promotional code JayHarp26 to get a 5% discount on the Instrument. It is made from Welsh Ash with gut or nylon strings and Rees levers (you can upgrade to Camac for an additional charge). You will also receive a dust cover and a tuning key, and you have the option to upgrade your postage from a wooden crate to a wooden flight case.

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Please email  Jay Michaels: openingtheharpchakra@yahoo.com
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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

You're listening to opening the harp chakra, the podcast, bringing you beautiful, healing, magical harp music, and talking with the artists that created I'm your host, Jay Michaels. Welcome back. It has been a few years since this podcast went on hiatus, and I'm I am so glad that you are here listening. Thank you so very much. We'd like to welcome a new sponsor to the podcast, Pedron Harps, P-E-D-R-A-N Harps from Wales, a beautiful small harp company, building harps from naturally filled with wood in Wales. And specifically the Pedron Bach is the harp I use. It's a small travel harp of twenty strings. I brought this harp to Ireland with me this past year. Oh it was beautiful playing that harp. If you'd like more information and a discount if you'd like to purchase the Pedron Bach, please check out the description notes. All the information is there along with a link. So on that trip to Ireland, my wife Abby and I recently visited Ireland in May of 2026. We were all over the place playing music, attending festivals, and just enjoying the beauty of Ireland. Then we went to Northern Ireland to Belfast and met up with my good friend Ursula Burns, and we had a lovely chat and listened to some of her music as well. So here's that interview from Northern Ireland, Belfast, and Ursula Burns. But we're here at the uh the Harrison Hotel in Belfast with Ursula Burns. I said one day when I bring the podcast back from hiatus, and now that it's back, it's time to have Ursula Burns on the podcast. So very happy to have you here. So uh I always ask guests what brought you to the harp? How did you and the instrument first get together?

SPEAKER_00 2:02

Well, I spent most of my uh life trying to resist the harp. Um my mother's a harpist and she's a self-taught harpist, and she's an O'Neill from Tyrone, so I'm from a long line of um lineage of harpers.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Indeed.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

And um my mum was outside the mould, so she used to set WB Yeats poems to music, and that was her thing. She didn't go through the official channels of learning the traditional style of harping. She was very much into the creative side of harping, and my grandfather was a fiddle player from the Blue Stacks of Donegal. He's an O'Neill from the family of O'Neills that we're from are from Donegal and Tyrone. There's a branch of the O'Neills in each place. Um, and my grandfather ended up settling in uh Tyrone, and my aunt actually, the Harper Arthur O'Neill uh passed away in Maydown estate in Eglish, and that has a connection. That's my aunt's uh land. The cottage is no longer there, but um, I would say that my uh musical background is from a lineage of musicians.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

Indeed, yes, it is. What was your first experience with the harp like when you first actually played the harp for the first time?

SPEAKER_00 3:23

Well, my first experience of the harp was resisting not playing it. Well, my mum played harp and I didn't want to play harp, but I would go around all the medieval banquets with mum. And from I was born I'd be singing with her, you know, like we'd wait, she would she would take me on all the tours, all the folk clubs, and on Donegal, they would have gigs on the back of trucks, and my grandfather would be playing for the Cayley in the old wooden hall, the men would be up one side of the room and the women would be up the other, and then they'd bring they'd bring out the sandwiches at half time, and you could hear the music in the the hall and they would do the set dancing. And um my dad was a bit of a comedian, he he worked in a factory, but he was a funny guy, so they would go into the bar, Nancy's bar, in in um Inver, and my dad would start, ladies and gentlemen, he'd sing a wee song, he'd get somebody else to do a party piece, and then he'd ask for hush for my mum to play a tune and the harp, and then the word would get out, and the all the musicians have all started start coming to the bar, and then the the the pints would be flowing, and we were only children, and we were there, and I'd be singing with mum. And then, as I got a bit older, by the time I was a teenager, she was dragging me round all the medieval banquets and castles and fairs. And I know you know about all of that. I loved it as well, but by that stage I still wasn't playing harp, I was playing the Bode Psaltery, and um I was singing harmonies. Uh, so I still didn't want to touch the harp, but the piano was my first love, and I could play the piano from I was about four. I wrote my first song and the piano I could just naturally play, and I had very severe dyslexia, so I tried a lesson, but I couldn't really, I couldn't cross that bridge, I couldn't read music, and I still can't, so my but I had a strong ear. So I did resist, I were on away with a circus and a theatre company, and I ended up in England on a horse-drawn theatre company for three years, and a guy came up from London and his name was Keith, and Keith had a wee tiny harp, not unlike the size, but it didn't sound as good as yours. Oh, thank you. Yeah, yours sounds fabulous, but his was a wee tiny harp, and they and he passed it around and they passed it to me. And I was sitting in England around the campfire, and I put my hands on the harp, and because I knew all my grandfather's tunes, all my mum's tunes, I just straight in to play that song Funny Par, the Carolyn one. And the musicians they I was there as a performer with their jaws dropped open, they were like, You never told us you could play the harp, and I was like, Well, I don't really play the harp. So I at that stage I realised I had to go back home, and I left uh I left the company and came back home. And my mum got me, I don't know how she managed it, but she got a Paraguayan harp and said, If you string this one up, you come to the gig with me, I'll give you 60 quid. So I was only going out to do the gig for some money, and then I sat beside my mum and I was picking, she was playing for three hours or something in the restaurant, and I was picking out the bass, which already and the harmonies, so playing sort of second fiddle really worked for me because I I really liked this kind of freedom and the exploration. And within everybody thought it was a harvest, and within a couple of months, I was doing two R gigs on my own. Nice. It just all the music was there, it just needed unlocked. Once I worked out, oh, you put it in G, you put it in C. And when I worked out how to tune it, that was it. I could just play. It wasn't uh it wasn't rocket science, as they say.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

Well, some say that if you play piano before you play the harp, it because I uh we are kindred spirits in that way. I played the piano first and uh I jumped in pretty quickly and started playing. Um so it's it's it's a very interesting connection.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

I think sometimes the harp plays you or the harp teaches you this is what I write about because it's a symbiotic relationship, and it's the it's it's actually the original art form was very much about it's uh it's a two-way street, so you every single harp I've ever played, and I've had a lot, I go through harps, um they every single harp I've had has brought something different out in my playing, and that's why I'm kind of addicted to keeping it moving and getting you you know a new instrument because it keeps it fresh, and every every relationship I have with a harp is different. So the Paraguayan harps bring out the funny side because they've got this bass and this short attack, and other harps that ring will bring a beautiful melodic air, or but the piano I do play the harp like a piano, and the the openness and the run, it's like the sea for me, it's like the ocean, it's got an expanse of possibility, and that's us it's also very so similar to the piano in terms of putting when you put it in the key. I just find it so similar to the piano. That's why I play the piano with one hand and the harp with the other, because they're the same instrument to me. They're similar.

SPEAKER_02 8:34

It's brilliant, it is. You have gone through I think some different incarnations in your professional career. You were known as the dangerous harpist.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Do you still do the dangerous harpist sometimes, or is that well uh the dangerous harpist was kind of it's it's a joke thing, right? Because uh there's a there it's a joke and it's not a joke. Um the dangerous aspect was about being bold and breaking the mould and bad, but there was a deeper connection with that in um in in Ireland there's a sort of um very approach to the harp that is traditional that I've never followed and resisted following following into in terms of learning repertoire and teaching skill and how it it it it there's an approach to the harp which instead it's putting it it's putting the music in and printing the music in from either notes or um well the oral tradition, but in a way a lot of people who are learning do read and that sort of thing. For me, the aspect was about drawing it out, and I was always natural songwriter, born songwriter, and I like bringing social commentary and humour into my songs, so I would I can write what I would call straight songs, but I would also verge into other forms of expression, so it's almost treating the harp like a singer-songwriter would treat a guitar. So the aspect of that is that your the dangerous harping came from the fact that for me it was this it was a sort of a statement that was going to shake things up a wee bit in the 1600s. You know, the harpers in Ireland were considered dangerous, and there was a very complex hierarchical structure in the society, and culture was the very centre of the spoke of that wheel. And uh the the English or Queen Elizabeth the what whoever there there's a lot of contest about it. Some people say she didn't call them dangerous and they weren't attacked, but other people say that they were, but nobody can deny that the culture was driven underground and that the language was driven underground, and that no one can really deny the history of what unfolded in Ireland. I've lived through my experiences of the repercussions of it, and um grown up on the Falls Road. Uh, so that was also an aspect of the dangerous harvest for me because I was growing up in a really very, very, very difficult and dark times, very complex, um real struggle. I grew up in the 70s and we went to school on the Falls Road, so um, I don't know if your listeners would understand the connotations of that, but there was a lot of fighting and a lot of army occupation and all that. So, for me, the romantic Ireland opposed to the you know, romantic Ireland as in Harp and Mary O'Hara and Yates and in a way my mum and the beauty, and I love the beauty and I love Ireland and I love nature, don't get me wrong, but I was growing up as sort of almost a sensitive person in a very volatile and violent society, and my comment of the dangerous harpist was I didn't want to be sweet and nice, and I wanted to to to disturb the the the politeness and the beauty and the it wasn't okay, and this could translate through to harp, and that's what my whole statement has been the whole way along. I broke it in every possible way I could think of from flying to lying down on the floor to cursing to writing about difficult subject matter to making albums to strapping myself onto the front of a cura and getting playing as a fingerhead for eight hours up and down the lagging.

SPEAKER_02 12:40

Well, yeah, you certainly did it, and you certainly made an impression. Uh I know you made an impression of me when I first started looking into your videos and your music, and I think it's really important to make a statement, to you know, forge your own way, because a lot of people can play the harp the same way, which is great, but it's those that adventure out of those boundaries that uh make history like like you.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Well, um it's been a complex and difficult journey because and I think my I have a non-orthodox approach and I've been very contemporary in my approach. My lineage is tradition, it would be from the tradition, but when you look deeper into the tradition, the original harpers would have had self-expression, they would have gone to Bardic school, they would make social commentary, they would be they could use satire, and I'm not saying it's a carbon copy of what I do, but what I'm saying is that there is a cultural validation that my work has not received yet in Ireland, or an acknowledgement that the connection hasn't really been made. I haven't communicated it very clearly. I've just been doing what I've been doing, but I'm I'm on the verge of communicating it. I am writing a book, and that is out of the comfort zone for me, and I am giving the full picture of why I do what I do, and and the why the exploration has not been about success or failure, it's been about exploration, it's been about taking a non-orthodox approach.

SPEAKER_02 14:18

That's great because I think you're making a great statement here and being very clear about it, but the book will even take that to a new level, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:25

Yes, and I'm trying to get all the nuances of that right, and as a dyslexic, it's been a big challenge, also as I'm writing it in my spare time. Like I was up this morning, it's I start at seven, and I do a couple of hours in an hour every day, and it's real, it's discipline. I'm getting very tired. I really want to finish the book and get it out, but I'm also doing it um myself, so it's it's it's taken a lot of um it I I don't want to um g upset people by saying some of the things that I'm saying. I don't want to the idea is you rock the boat, but not so much that you fall out. And I've fallen out before, I've been chucked out, I've I've had all sorts of experiences outside the boat, but actually I would like to make it palatable so and communicate it clearly, and I'm putting a lot of effort and work into communicating it the full journey clearly because I've lived the journey, I have the receipts, I've done the work, I just need to package it and let people know what it was, and that's what you asked me. It's about the dangerous harpist. Queen Elizabeth I said hang the harpers and burn their instruments, and they were considered dangerous. Some people think she didn't say that I I unpack all of that in the book. But whether she said it or didn't say it, the the the culture was a threat, and there's a the the the aspects of the culture that were a threat didn't survive to the bunting festival because in 1792 in this city and down in the assembly rooms, the the Bunting Festival was a bid to capture the last of the dying art form and to pull they did literally save the art form, it pulled it through the eye of the needle, and it it it it it was immensely successful in that respect, but my point is that the the the culture that survived was not the same culture that got destructed. Boom boom boom. I think you're gonna need a theme tune there.

SPEAKER_02 16:42

I I think so. I think so. That that's a lot. Um yeah. There's a lot more to the Bunting Festival, and I think you're gonna explore that more in your book so we can.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

It's done. Okay, we'll look forward to that when it comes out.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

When are you expecting the book to come out, do you think?

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Uh every I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 17:00

Okay, that's fine. It'll be coming out in the future. Yes. Or depending on when you're hearing this podcast, it may already be out.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

Yes, it's gonna be called Belfast Rebel Harp.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

Nice. Belfast Rebel Harp. Beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

It's good.

SPEAKER_02 17:13

Let's talk about your album, The Secret Melody of Trees. I've got the yes there. The Secret Melodies of Trees. It's um I got this um I downloaded from probably Bandcamp, I think. Or uh and I I love it. And I love the video of the uh Dreaming in Violet. Yeah. Um it's beautiful playing, uh, a beautiful video. Can you talk a little bit about how that video came to be? Yeah, the way you made it.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

I'll I'll I'll go on to the video, but first I'll tell you the yeah, I I wanted coming up on 30 years of of devising my own style of playing, um, which had all the influences of my lineage, heritage, music from childhood, and the fact that I was working on a Paraguayan harp, I thought perhaps it was Paraguayan influence, but it turned out what when I went to Paraguay to the festival, I realised it wasn't really Paraguayan influence, but so goodness knows what it was. It was my expression on the harp between the harps that I was playing. So I felt that because I had a big epic feel in my life with my career, which was a mistake I made, um, that was very public and very shaming and very difficult for me to recover from. I also felt that I wanted to, I felt like outside of the harp world, and I felt it would be really nice to document my style and just play harp in an album. It was my seventh studio album, but I had only I had never made a harp album and I had never given the harp any space on any of the albums, they were all about songs. So I wanted to work with somebody fantastic, and I asked Donald O'Connor is a really master musician, and he's he's is into the traditional music. He's the founder of Belfast Tradfest, which for your audience highly recommend at the end of July. If you ever want to come to Belfast, that's the time to do it because he runs all the courses and people can turn their hand to any traditional music, and they put on an array of fabulous uh concerts. But so I wanted to work with him, and he took the project on, and we um had a meeting, and I said I want to make a harp album, and then I wrote all the tunes, and we were trying to discuss like what what is it, what is the concept of it. We were thinking that I'm I'm Irish, but I never followed the traditional pathway to the harp, so it was Irish with a small eye, and then we got the uh the cover of the trees, and it happened because they cut 12 sycamores down the round the corner from my house, and you'd have thought someone died. I wept for two weeks, you know, I was so upset. These were very old trees, and I wrote um Where the Sycamore Used to Be, which is the last track in the album, and then I realized that I wanted to make you see the ancient druidic thing was well, not only does the heart come from a tree, but the ancient druids would have would have connected to music through nature, and the bardic thing connecting to the music through nature, and although I've never put it out publicly so much forward in my career, I am a very nature-driven person, swimming in the sea, going in the forests, meditating, all these things are daily for me. I don't watch TV, I connect with nature, that's how I live. So I um wanted to evoke an aspect of that ancient practice which is connecting with nature, um, and so I felt that that was the album to do it, and then we made the album and I was delighted. I got I got reviews from all over the world, and everybody ignored it in Ireland, but that's fine, I don't mind. Um but what happened was um Michael McNulty is a he's a real character in Belfast. I I met him because I wrote a song about him. You like to go to hospital because he was such a funny guy, and he makes all my videos, but were they all they're all done on about 50p of a budget. Like there's literally no budget. And I said to Michael, Of course, there's very little budget for this, and I need a video for this um for this beautiful tune called Dreaming. And violet as Jacaranda petals fall, and the titles of every every tune was not so much to say the oak, the ash, the willow in reference to trees, it was more how we have relationships with trees. So this one's about you know the petals falling and making the path go all violet, and the other tune, like holding your breath while you're going through the wishing trees, and in that moment where you're an adult or a child, I do it as an adult. I hold my breath when I'm driving through the trees and I make my wishes, you know. And these practices are just or when you're just out for a walk and you just you just put your hand on the trunk and you or or that moment in the secret melodies of trees where the last lone leaf is just wafting down and it was evoking it was evoking our relationship with trees. So anyway, back to the video. Michael said, Yeah, sure, come round. So I came around with the harp, we put the legs out, stood it up, and he said, just play it a wee bit. So I just played it a wee bit. I don't need we he put the track on and I went once through over the top, and he said, I'll have it for you in a few days.

SPEAKER_02 23:20

Well, that was it, huh?

SPEAKER_00 23:21

And he sent it to me. It's a green screen. He had a green screen, but I I he um he's magical, he is just so good at what he does, and he doesn't get enough um credit for his his absolute skill, and he's so gracious to always accommodate, you know, when you turn up and say, Oh, as usual, there's no budget. We're all the videos on my YouTube are made by Michael, and they're all so different and so random, and they're all on a very pit practically no budget, you know, very low budget.

SPEAKER_02 23:53

You'd never know. We'll put a link to your videos on YouTube in the description to the podcast so people can go look at them because uh like I say, this is a beautiful video, and you'd never know you spend so little on it because it's just it's it's very beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

Well, it it really evoked the it's slow pace, it's it's gentle in the nervous system, and it's it's it's it's a perfect kind of it doesn't it's it's yeah, and it's just that beautiful when you're coming to with your with your harp, it's just oh, it's it's just lovely.

SPEAKER_02 24:23

Um we're gonna actually have you play for us um the secret melodies of trees, if you don't mind.

SPEAKER_01 24:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 27:47

Ursula Burns here at the uh Harrison Hotel in Belfast, Northern Ireland, listening to you play your harp. How nice. It's so nice again, once again, to meet you in person, to get to see you here in this lovely hotel downtown in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and and just chat. It's it's wonderful. Thank you for that.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

Well, it's my pleasure, and also likewise I've been loving watching your journey, and you know, I see your videos, and uh it's so nice to meet in person. I'm so thrilled that you made it to Belfast.

SPEAKER_02 28:19

Yeah, we had a wonderful visit from Dublin to Galway to uh Kinvara to the the cuckoo fleet and uh dingle and we've been playing and um this is uh the uh towards the end of our trip, but what a nice way to wind it down. Yeah. To sit here and chat and talk harp. Uh we'll put uh some links to how to get your album and your albums. Yeah. As I mentioned before, we'll link to your YouTube page so people can find those those beautiful videos. And let's not forget about um I know a lot of people love the song Caledonia and the guy that wrote it, Doogie McLean, and you and him have a connection.

SPEAKER_00 28:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:00

Do you want to Yeah?

SPEAKER_00 29:01

I'll tell your people about that. So uh my uh family are musicians, and my uncle uh lives out in France, his name's Pat O'Neill, he plays fiddle and flute, he's a musician, and he was busking in the 70s in uh I think it I was in France somewhere, it might have been Brittany, I don't know exactly. But Dougie came along the street, and Diggy had been in a van in a band called the Tunnel Weavers, and the song goes he he lost some friends and found some new friends along the way. Right, can't remember the exact line. Um, and the new friend he found was my uncle Pat, and they did a bit of busking together, and then Diggy was homesick and he'd been starting to write Caledonia on the beach, the song which is practically the national the unofficial national anthem of Scotland.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

It is, yeah indeed.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

So um everybody loves it. So anyway, and rightly so. Diggy went, my uncle said, Well, sure, come with us back to Ireland on the boat, and then you can stay in our house, and then you can go on home to Scotland from there. Of course, this is the height of the troubles in the north of Ireland. And they took Diggy under their wing and brought him back to um my grandfather's house. And my grandfather had a gig that night, and it was round the corner in the parochial hall for the priest. So they said, Come on, Diggy, you're playing on stage too. And they dragged Dougie out to on the stage, and there's a photograph of my grandfather, Diggy McLean, my uncle Pat on his fiddle, and two other musicians on the stage. So Dougie went they gave him Tempe and he went up to the phone box to put the money in and call his parents to tell them he was safe, but he was actually in quite an unsafe place. I'm not going to tell you exactly what they said, but Dougie went, they all went on to the pub, and Dougie went back to the house. And um Dougie hasn't confirmed this, and you know, we don't exactly know because it was 1977 when the song was written in June. But my grandfather's fire, they used to say that the sun had fallen out of the sky and down the chimney because and all around the fire it was all burnt because the coal the fire was so bright, and in the third verse, you hear the flames they couldn't get any higher, and then the embers die away, and he's by the fire and he knows what he must do tomorrow. When kisses flow, he must say goodbye and go back off to Scotland with the song. And I'm convinced, and I told Dougie, No, you did write it in the times that he thought. Yeah, but we said that he did again. I didn't know, but anyway, we we did have a good laugh about it backstage. So when we were chatting about it, Dougie said, Do you want to play the harp on it?

SPEAKER_02 31:57

Now this was just recently at the Bel Test.

SPEAKER_00 31:59

A couple of weeks ago. Well, uh say weeks, it was the it was the 20th of February. No, it wasn't, it was 14th of February 2025. Is that so precisely?

SPEAKER_02 32:11

Okay, yeah, alright. We'll figure all the temporal stuff out of it.

SPEAKER_00 32:16

So uh it was only a few months ago. So Dougie said, come on, and the the audience were just about to let them in. So we we went on to the stage to find the harp, and it worked out it was what it was all the believers were up. I didn't even know what key was in, and I didn't get a chance to practice it with him. But he said, Join me on stage, it'll be grand. So I got on stage behind him and started to play the tune, and I just felt so transported when I was on stage. I was just back there in my grandparents' um room, it was old-fashioned, you know, and I could imagine Dougie just sitting there as young. I showed him the photograph of him at that time, and he was so he he'd long hair, he couldn't believe the photograph, he so it looked so 70s, and um it was just such a beautiful moment. Um and I was saying earlier, my mum's a was a harpist, but she took a stroke last November, couldn't walk or talk, and uh she couldn't play harp anymore, and she'd run a very strong business providing music for 30 years, you know. Um so anyway, mum, I mum was in hospital. I said to mum, I'm gonna be doing a gig with Dougie McLean. Well, here she was, one eye opened, the other eye opened, and she practically sat up in the bed, and she got better for that gig. No kidding. She could walk and talk, and she wrote Dougie a poem, and she came to the gig, and all my family were there, and everybody came from Tyrone, and the place was just electric. And afterwards, Dougie wanted to go out, he's he was doing the vapour thing. Well, everybody in the whole venue lined up to say hello to him. He must have been there two and a half hours shaking hands and doing like a royal lineup with everybody, and everybody was so happy. People were giving him gifts, and my aunt gave him the framed copy of the photograph, and mum gave him a poem, and he was just like this is fantastic, it was really magical and very memorable, and it was all thanks to Belfast Tradfest because uh the guy who made the album with Donald O'Connor at the time we were making the album, we were chatting as we were you know mixing the thing down, and I told him that story, and then he met Dougie in Scotland in the lift and said, Will you come over and play the gig? And he arranged the gig. So it was a combination of Belfast Tradfest and Dougie, and it all came together so beautifully.

SPEAKER_02 34:55

When you first posted the video, the first video of that, I know that the angle wasn't didn't get all the sound quarter, and you couldn't quite hear the harp as much, but I it I felt for you. I mean, I felt that wow, this is so cool, yeah. You know, for you to actually come full circle with this whole relationship with him.

SPEAKER_00 35:13

There was a better uh video came so the well, the one that was taken from the back where this you could hear the sound. Um, I think I held back for the first verse because obviously Caledonia is like everybody who bought a ticket for that gig wants to hear the sun. Right, that's the colour jewel. I didn't want to like trump in with my Lily Bitson right at the top. I decided to hang back for the first verse, and then I started quite tentatively to find the chords, and then I was in. Uh so it it it gathered, um it it grew, yeah, developed and and I also was quite trying to hike just sit behind the song but not go too far forward because of the reverence of people's relationship to that song. I didn't feel like I could also I wasn't sure what I was doing.

SPEAKER_02 36:10

Well, I I've I've seen videos of Doogie doing that tune with great groups of people where he just kind of hangs back and sings on the choruses too. So you know it goes both ways, but it was it was a moment. It was a moment it was a beautiful moment.

SPEAKER_00 36:23

It was a historical moment for me because the family connection to the song, the fact that he he brought that song via my grandparents' house, you know, to back to Scotland is magic. And my aunts were there. They were the first people in the world who ever heard it. He played it to my two aunties. You know, and they're there they were at the gig.

SPEAKER_02 36:47

Yeah, what a what a memory, what a legacy.

SPEAKER_00 36:49

It's magic. Yeah, and also for Northern Ireland that Caledonia had a connection to here to Belfast. You know, do he Doogie thinks that the Moy is a suburb of Belfast. He kept saying that there we were in Belfast, but he doesn't realise the Moy's an hour up the road, you know. It's it's it's in throne, it's more rural, you know. But um he he was he was magic and everybody loves him here, you know. We're all very fond of Dougie.

SPEAKER_02 37:18

Yeah, a lot of folks love him in the States too.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

Oh he's so loved because he it's just it's just magical that he he uh what he managed to convey in his songwriting, you know.

SPEAKER_02 37:32

Yeah, so many of his songs just tug at your heartstrings or just make you feel good. And and during the pandemic, when he started doing the live concerts from his house, what a wonderful thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 37:41

He still does them. Yeah, yeah, he's still every Friday night he does a lot of.

SPEAKER_02 37:44

Oh, every Friday night. I didn't realize he didn't. Or Saturday, I think. Well, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 37:48

He does do a lot of lives. You you just have to follow him online and he he he does his his his live show on the weekend.

SPEAKER_02 37:56

Nice. Uh just a question out of curiosity because the the harp is the national emblem of Ireland.

SPEAKER_00 38:01

In Northern Ireland, is it still does it carry the same weight or is it uh well I think so I mean technically we are under British rule, that's why they're all fighting about flags.

SPEAKER_01 38:15

Yeah, of course, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:16

But I mean source object, I mean everybody's fighting for years about this, but um the the uh Irish the harp would be the symbol of the South of Southern Ireland. The people who who want a united Ireland would be delighted and say that the harp is their symbol too. Um I would perceive that Northern Ireland has its own unique um chemistry of people who identify as British and people who identify as Irish, and I think both should be set, you know what I what that it's everybody's right now who's been fighting about it to say I'm either British or I'm Irish. Of course, I play harp and I would identify as an Irish person, but I would not be critical of anybody who identifies as British. It's why everybody's been fighting for years, so I'm not gonna solve it. But what I would say is that Northern Ireland does need to unite with itself in terms of you know um, and I think the harp obviously the harp has consumed my whole I've devoted my life to harp. So for me it's a perfect symbol, and I do play the instrument that is the emblem of Ireland. There you go. Uh so it's not uh inseparable.

SPEAKER_02 39:46

Well, I think music is something that connects us all, and uh whether it's Irish harp music or Irish fiddle music, jigs, reels, ballads, airs, it's all wonderful, it's all beautiful, and it's all part of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Yeah, it's it's a beautiful legacy for everyone.

SPEAKER_00 40:05

Yeah, of course. I mean, how could you not uh want to love it? Or it's such a powerful instrument and it's history, it's it's it's complex history, and the complexity that you have when you step out of the norms of the perceived vision of the harp is real. It's this there is a there is a power in it, and there's also a power in breaking the perceived mould of what it's been boxed into.

SPEAKER_02 40:37

It's good of you to do that. You are a visionary.

SPEAKER_00 40:41

Well, um it's not a path for the faint of heart.

SPEAKER_02 40:45

No, it's not.

SPEAKER_00 40:46

And it's tough out there. It is all I can say.

SPEAKER_02 40:50

And you know, having to change a harp string in a gig is one of the most difficult things that anyone will ever have to do. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_00 40:56

Well, you don't I think if you get the tension right on your harp, ideally you shouldn't be having to.

SPEAKER_02 41:04

But should the unthinkable happen?

SPEAKER_00 41:05

It's happened to me before, and um but I had a very highly strong harp. It would it would ping strings. I sometimes thought it was shot, you know, and the string goes, it's like pinging.

SPEAKER_02 41:19

It's uncharacteristic of the sound that comes from a harp when a string string breaks.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

So uh and it but it affects your whole body. Like if you're playing the harp and a string goes, it shouldn't happen. Every single harp I've ever had since that one has delicious tension that just won't go there. It will not break a string uh when I'm playing because the tension is perfect, you know. Um strings breaking are about tension, as are most things, even the situation in Northern Ireland. Yes, indeed.

SPEAKER_02 41:51

This has been wonderful chatting with you today, Ursula. The the podcast had been on hiatus for quite some time, and um uh you inspired me to get it back when you said let's get together in Ireland, in Northern Ireland, and I said, Yeah, let's let's get the podcast back on. So let's get the band back together, kids.

SPEAKER_00 42:07

Chariot Safire on the harp for you.

unknown 42:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:11

Yes, yes, do you think that we can walk in slow motion down the streets of Belgium?

SPEAKER_00 42:17

Yay! It's fantastic. I'm so deli I mean that that's an honour. And it it how delightful to you know to meet you uh uh after watching your journey as well. And um I actually it means a lot to me to get any sort of validation for my work because it hasn't it hasn't happened in Ireland. Um so that's the reality. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:42

Yeah, it's happening, it is in the process of happening. We uh we will link, as I said before, um your website and um your YouTube page and uh where we can and people can buy your CDs or download your CDs.

SPEAKER_00 42:58

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 42:59

And we actually beforehand we shot a little video of uh of us playing together, my wife and lovely musical partner for 21 years playing music together. Actually, more than that. We've been married 21 years, but even longer than that, and she's in there too. So we'll uh we'll put a link to wherever that's gonna end up as well.

SPEAKER_00 43:17

And can I just say Abby's such a sensational player? When we were playing the tune, we were both on the same page and we went into the harmony at the same time, and then we went with it. But it just I would love to get the chance to play more. And the next time you come to Belfast, we're gonna arrange a gig in this room. Excellent. I'll pack it out for you.

SPEAKER_02 43:36

And the next time you come to the States, we'll do the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 43:38

Amazing, yes. I've got a travel case there, born ready.

SPEAKER_02 43:43

Excellent. So moted be, it will happen.

SPEAKER_00 43:47

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 43:48

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 43:50

Totally my pleasure. It would be great to get you down to see the um the assembly rooms before you go.

SPEAKER_02 43:57

Let's go.

SPEAKER_00 43:58

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_02 43:59

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 43:59

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_02 44:00

Alright.

SPEAKER_00 44:01

Because you can't come all the way to Belfast and not see where the Balding Festival happened.

SPEAKER_02 44:05

No.

SPEAKER_00 44:06

You can't?

SPEAKER_02 44:07

No. No, no. I think we should do it. I think we should do it.

SPEAKER_00 44:10

Okay. Alright. I'll jump in your car or do you come in in my truck?

unknown 44:14

Either way.

SPEAKER_02 44:15

Yeah, either way.

SPEAKER_00 44:15

Well, I've only one seat, so I'd come in your truck. And I'll show you my name. Alright. Okay. All right. Let's go.

SPEAKER_01 44:23

Let's go.

SPEAKER_00 44:23

Bye, podcast. We gotta go.