John Garland (1190-1264) wrote a treatise on Organum, and outlined a scheme of dividing the interval, which developed into ornamentation, passing notes, and grace notes.  The Dublin Troper of the thirteenth century has a number of farced Kyries and Glorias, also a collection of Sequences.  A Dublin Processionale of the fourteenth century contains the most elaborate form of the Officium Sepulchri, with musical notation on a four-line stave—­the foundation of the Miracle Play of the Resurrection.  Another Dublin Troper dates from 1360 and was used in St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  It contains the hymn, “Angelus ad Virginem”, alluded to by Chaucer.  The Christ Church Psaltery, 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.