Many thanks to Paul Gifford for the following fascinating information. “Dick, there was John Dowling, active in Dublin by 1761. He’s mentioned in my book. I have quite a few more historical references than when I did when I wrote the book. The Ulster King of Arms (or some office like that) even maintained a dulcimer player at official expense from the 1770s to 1790s or so. I don’t have the reference handy at the moment, but there are lots of references in northern Ireland from that period. Archibald Williamson (whose name sounds Scottish), the “Irish Jew,” advertised “the Jews music” at the Sign of the Fiddle and Dulcimer in Dublin in 1738 and 1744. So it’s safe to say it was known by then.
“I came across a manuscript in the U.S. where the author wrote about his grandfather, born in 1836, who had a dulcimer that he said came over from Ireland in the 18th century with his immigrant ancestor. The name was Conley. True or not, who knows, but it’s possible. Then there’s a very old one in the New Brunswick Museum brought over in the early 19th century by an immigrant from Derry.”
Paul Gifford: The Hammered Dulcimer … A History
“The Irish seemed to regard the hammered dulcimer as typically Jewish. An Dublin advertisment in 1738/9 announced, The Jews music is to be had at the Sign of the Fiddle and Dulcimer in Copper Alley by Archibald Williamson, who Gentlemen are pleased to called the Irish Jew. In 1769, a German-born Jew, Isaac Isaacs arrived in Dublin where he enjoyed a successful career playing Irish jigs and reels on his dulcimer in theatres and taverns. For several years he was under a retainer to play with a fiddler weekly for a well-known brothel-operator.”
Cheers Dick
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