Hora Irish Bouzouki

These exquisitely decorated Irish bouzoukis are made in Reghin, Romania by our partners at Hora Instruments. The company was founded in 1951 by the master luthier Roman Boianciuc who built the first violin in Reghin. The city is now synonymous with instrument-making, with many other smaller manufacturers springing up around the original Hora factory over the last 70 years.

Hora’s Irish bouzoukis are a shining example of what has made the company such an enduring name right across Europe. The workmanship is beautiful, combining a charmingly rounded teardrop body shape and floral decoration in inlaid walnut around the soundhole with eye catching chrome hardware and pearloid fretboard markers. The design is subtle and charmingly understated. Tonally they really sing with a clear, articulate voice with crystal clear high frequencies and beautifully textured mids with almost endless sustain. This is thanks to the quality, solid spruce top and mahogany back, sides and neck used in their construction. The spruce top has been grown slowly at altitude in the Carpathians for density and tonal clarity. Hora’s use of locally grown tonewoods not only gives their instruments a beautiful sound- it’s also good for the planet as is their use of 100% water based lacquers. Quality, reliable open geared tuners and bright, ringing phosphor bronze strings top off the high spec of these gorgeous Irish bouzoukis. If you’re looking for an exceptionally good value instrument for melody playing or Celtic accompaniment then you really couldn’t do much better than this! You can also add a fitted gig bag if you wish- they’re available on the checkout page.

We are proud to donate £5 from the sale of every Hora instrument to our partners at ACRC, a charity founded by the Roma community who are forced by the local government to live on a landfill site on the outskirts of Cluj Napoca. I met founder Alex Fechete (who famously narrated and starred in the Channel 4 show The Romanians Are Coming) during my time in the country and was appalled by the conditions inflicted upon the Roma. If you’d like to find out more about the work of ACRC please click here to read my full write up of my trip or make a separate donation by clicking here.

We are very grateful to Hora for supporting our fundraising for the Roma community of Cluj Napoca.