By Lesley Walsh
WOMEN from all over the borough have flocked to a music class to learn how to play the harp, in a grant-aided initiative delivered by Kilcooley Women’s Centre.
The £11,000 boost from the Department for Communities (DfC), paid for the harps which have proved so popular the Women’ s Centre could have tripled the number of available spaces.
DfC Minister, Gordon Lyons, visited Bangor’s Old Market House on Monday where the lessons take place each week, during a day of official engagements in Bangor to see the fruits of a number of grants received by local bodies.
On top of the provision of harp lessons, through the department’s Musical Instruments for Bands Scheme, the DUP minister was at Bangor’s West Church, King’s Fellowship Church, and Bangor Rugby Club and Cricket Club, which also received grants to upgrade facilities through the Northern Ireland Community Infrastructure Fund.
The harp initiative is the latest cross-cultural endeavour operated by Kilcooley Women’s Centre (KWC), which has engaged in a wide range of multi-ethnic community groups and cross-border events and activities in recent years.
Its reach well beyond Kilcooley has been evident throughout the whole of Ards and North Down for several years, and has gained the group internationally recognised acclaim, including a Bond Street award for Alison’s leadership and ‘exceptional contributions to community and social enterprise’ in 2024.
As the only women’s centre in Ards and North Down, it provides outreach training, job- focused skills and support for the long-term unemployed, women returning to the workplace and disabled people.
Ms Blaney spoke of the unprecedented popularity of the harp lessons.
“A number of people had expressed an interest in music in our arts and culture programme and a number had expressed an interest in learning the harp.
“There wasn’t anything like it locally; the closest we could find it was in Poleglass in Belfast, and a small one in Belfast city centre.
“We got our first set of harps about three years ago and then we got our money from Gordon Lyons’ department last financial year to buy the bigger harps because the smaller ones are the learning ones and the bigger ones are for performance.
“We are taking people who wouldn’t have the opportunity so we have 30 small harps and six large harps,” she said, revealing the beautiful instruments cost approximately £350 and £900 each, respectively.
She revealed that the musical opportunities are to increase in the autumn when people will also be offered other instruments to choose from.
“We will soon be extending the trad music in the autumn to the tin whistle and the bodhrán.”
Kelly Brown, who runs the harp classes taught by Mary Keag, a music teacher at St. Columbanus College, put Mr Lyons through his paces on the harp, showing him how to execute a number of simple chords.
The KWC project officer explained that the lessons fill the gap for people who would otherwise find it too expensive to learn something like the harp.
“I think that’s why the programme has performed so well because for lots of classes you have to buy your own instrument, and that’s a massive investment,” she said.
The multi-talented KWC employee, who also sings and acts, restated the lessons’ popularity by revealing learners who go through the classes almost always want to progress beyond novice level.
“So we have improvement classes as well as learners and we hope to establish a performance group,” she said.
“It’s so popular we could treble the places we have available.”
