ltery, about 1370, has musical notation and is
exquisitely illuminated. Lionel Power, an Anglo-Irishman, wrote the
first English treatise on music in 1395. Exactly a century later, in
1495, a music school was founded in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin.

The Irish Annals of the thirteenth to the fifteenth century have
numerous references to distinguished harpers and singers, and there
are still sung many beautiful airs of this period, including "The
Coulin" and "Eibhlin a ruin." John Lawless was a famous Irish
organ-builder of the second half of the fifteenth century, and his
successor, James Dempsey, built many fine organs between the years
1530 and 1565.

Notwithstanding the many penal enactments against Irish minstrels,
all the great Anglo-Irish nobles of the Pale retained an Irish harper
and piper in their service. Under date of 1480, we find Chief Justice
Bermingham having an Irish harper to teach his family, as also "to
harp and to dance." A century later "Blind Cruise, the
harper"--Richard Cruise--composed a lamentation song on the fall of
the Baron of Slane, the air of which is still popular. It is to the
credit of the Irishman, William Bathe (who subsequently became a
Jesuit), that he wrote the first printed English treatise on music,
published in 1584--thus ante-dating by thirteen years Morley's work.
Bathe wrote a second musical treatise in 1587, and he was the first
to call measures by the name of bars. He also formulated methods of
transposition and sight reading that may still be studied with
profit.

Thomas Campion, the poet and composer, was born in Dublin in 1567,
but spent nearly all his life in England. Other Irish composers, to
mention only the most distinguished, were William Costello
(madrigalist), Richard Gillie, Edward Shergold, and Walter Kennedy.
Strange as it may seem, Queen Elizabeth retained in her service an
Irish harper, Cormac MacDermot, from 1591 to 1603, and on the death
of the queen he was given an annual pension of L46 10s. 10d.--nearly
L500 a year of our present money.

Shakespeare refers to eleven Irish tunes, of which the famous
"Callino Casturame" (_Cailin og a stuir me_) is still fresh. Irish
dances were extremely popular at the English court from 1600 to 1603
and were introduced into the Masks. Shakespeare's "intrinsic friend,"
John Dowland of Dublin, was one of the greatest lutenists in Europe
from 1590 to 1626. In the dedication of a song "to my loving
countryman, Mr. Joh