The Ancient Music of Ireland, Arranged for the Piano Forte. To Which is prefixed a Dissertation on The Irish Harp and Harpers, including an Account of the Old Melodies of Ireland. Dublin: Hodges & Smith, 1840. First Edition. Pp, 99, xi, 109 pages of engraved music. Decorative coloured title page.Original emerald green cloth blocked in gilt on the sides with a bold pattern incorporating a harp and on the spine with a naturalistic pattern. Damp-stain to upper right corner of half-title page, inner hinges strengthened ,otherwise a very good copy.

Edward Bunting of Armagh was a nineteen-year-old professional musician in Belfast when he was engaged at the Belfast Harp Festival of 1792 to note down the music of the last of the oral-tradition Irish harpers. Entranced by this music of medieval origins which was foreign to his own classical training and experience, and introduced by it to the contemporary world of traditional music, he made the collection, arrangement and publication of traditional music his lifework, and published three volumes of airs in 1796, 1809 and this third and last collection in1840.