Tag Archives: John McCormack

Athlone By Rail

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Athlone lies bang in the centre of Ireland, straddling the mighty River Shannon. It is just a hundred and twenty five kilometres west of Dublin, and about halfway between Dublin and Galway. The railway line opened in the 1850s; the station here dates from 1859. There’s a train every forty minutes from Dublin’s Heuston Station and the trip takes an hour and a half. Galway is just under ninety kilometres further on, a little over an hour by rail. The western expansion of the railway system connects to Galway City and to Westport and Ballina in County Mayo. Athlone station lies north east of the town and it’s a pleasant walk into the centre via the Civic Centre. This is a sleek modernist campus built in 2005, a combination of civic buildings including the town hall and library, retail and housing. Seated at its focal point is a bronze statue of Athlone’s most famous son, Count John McCormack. It was made by Irish artist Rory Breslin in 2014, and very good it is too. 

Born in Athlone in 1884 McCormack became Ireland’s most renowned tenor whose repertoire ranged from Classic Italian Opera to Irish popular folk songs. Moving to Dublin, in his early twenties he nurtured James Joyce’s singing ambitions, persuading him to enter the Feis Ceoil in 1904 where Joyce got a bronze medal. Though Joyce would follow a different muse, McCormack became a hugely successful concert and recording artist. The songs of Thomas Moore feature strongly in his recordings, as well as patriotic airs and sentimental Irish ballads. He starred in the film Song o’ My Heart with Maureen O’Sullivan in 1930 and lived in a large estate in Hollywood.

He retired in 1938, but returned to live performance in support of the British and Allied war effort in WWII. Ill health forced his final retirement from the stage and he died at his home in Booterstown in 1945. 

There’s a bright gleaming light, guiding me home tonight, 

Down the long road of white cobble stone, 

Down the road that leads back, to that tumble down shack, 

To that tumble down shack in Athlone. 

This song was recorded by McCormack in 1919. Penned by Richard Pascoe, Monte Carlo and Alma Sanders it was also recorded by Bridie Gallagher and Bing Crosby

The Town Centre development opens onto Dublin Gate Street, part of the narrow main axis on the East bank leading on to Church Street. Here it contrasts charmingly with St Mary’s Church,(Church of Ireland). The Catholic St Mary’s is farther east heading out of the town. The street winds down to the bridge across the Shannon, the focal point of the town. Lough Ree, the largest lake on the Shannon, lies a few miles upstream to the North. Clonmacnoise, a major monastic site of the Middle Ages, is downriver. Built in the sixth century it flourished until the coming of the Normans, eventually abandoned in the 13th century with the development of Athlone as a defendable settlement. There are boat cruises you can take to visit.

Athlone has a population of twenty three thousand people. The name means Ford of Luan, from it’s founder, a shadowy figure. The Gaelic word Luan translates as Monday and may, perhaps, refer to the Moon. The idea of this fording place, midway along the great river, as the ford of the moon is poetic; but I am being fanciful. County Westmeath stretches along the East bank of the Shannon, however Athlone extends onto the West bank. It’s central location has long made Athlone strategically important 

Brian Boru massed his forces here and accepted the submission of the High King, Malachy II in 1001. This was the start of Brian’s push for power, culminating in his defeat of the Danes and their Leinster allies. He was killed in the battle’s aftermath, and his crown returned to Malachy. The first bridge was built in the twelfth century and the King Turlough O’Connor established a fort to defend it. The stone fort followed in 1200 in the reign of King John. The twelve sided Donjon, or central tower, survives. The rest of the current castle dates from a reconstruction following he Siege of Athlone in 1691. Then, Athlone Castle was a Jacobite stronghold defending Connaught against the Williamites. Besieged twice, it repulsed the first onslaught of ten thousand men following the defeat of James at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, but fell to William and Mary’s army in July 1691. The invaders were under command of Dutch General Godard Ginkel with Jacobite forces under Patrick Sarsfield and French General St Ruth. One of the defenders, killed in defence of the bridge, Sergeant Custume, is commemorated in the naming of the local army barracks.

The castle is well worth a visit, with a museum covering the area’s rich history, including John McCormack, and interactive exhibits and models in period dress. Fabulous views over the river and town from the top of the tower.

Saints Peter and Paul’s Church is an impressive Athlone landmark on the West bank. Built in the 1930s in the Baroque Revival style by architect Ralph Byrne. The neo classical entrance is framed by twin stepped belltowers and the church is topped with a central copper clad dome. Inside are five stained glass windows from the Harry Clarke studio, made by Richard King after Clarke died in 1931. Adjacent is the Luan Art Gallery, a publicly owned contemporary gallery hugging the western bank of the Shannon below street level.

On the other side of the Castle, Sean’s Bar claims to be the oldest pub in Ireland. A 1970s renovation uncovered a wall of wattle and daub from the tenth century. Artefacts found there including coins have been dated back to 900AD. Apparently Brian Boru used to pop in for the odd pint. Mind, the price of the pint has gone up a bit in the meantime, so if you leave any change lying around it won’t lie around for a millennium. The current building dates back three hundred years. It’s a pleasant, cosy old style bar and a popular music venue. The entrance is in the shadow of the Castle and there’s pavement seating in the summer. The bar steps down a few levels towards the back of the premises, where there’s a beer garden which exits onto the quayside. 

Navigation on the Shannon was facilitated by the building of a canal in the eighteenth century. This was replaced by the current system of a weir and lock gates, south of the bridge in the town centre in the 1840s. The line of the old canal forms the western border of the town, and County Westmeath, but the canal itself is no more. The winding streets of the old town are pleasant to poke around and we came across a fine old house once home to the Count himself. It’s a long way from a tumbledown shack.

Returning to the East bank, the town’s gearing up for evening rush hour, comparatively speaking. We make our way out to the Golden Island Shopping Centre which opened in 1997. Nearby, Burgess Park beckons with woodland, walking trails, a playground and memorial garden. Sloping down to the Shannon, it is the ideal urban oasis. Sitting there in the early evening sunshine as people promenaded and relaxed, I was put in mind of Seurat’s great painting the Isle de la Grande Jatte. It just shows, that through the ages and across longitudes, people maintain a continuity, enjoying the pleasure of harmony amongst trees and flowing rivers, in the company of themselves or others.

Time to get the train back to Heuston. As a three hour round trip, the railway trip gives you time for a full day in Athlone. There are plenty of hotels too, and I must stay over sometime. Later in the year I plan to go all the way to the end of the line: Galway. Wow, I feel a song coming on. 

Maybe somewhere down the road aways (end of the line)

You’ll think of me, wonder where I am these days (end of the line)

Maybe somewhere down the road when somebody plays (end of the line)

Purple Haze

This song radiates sunshine and love, and time. Most of the ingredients you need. End of the Line was written by George Harrison, and included on the Travelling Wilburys’ eponymous debut album in 1988.

Well, it’s alright (alright), riding around on the breeze

Well, it’s alright (alright), if you live the life you please

Well, it’s alright, even if the sun don’t shine

Well, it’s alright (alright), we’re going to the end of the line

Dublin’s Rocky Road

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From Sydney Parade, Aylesbury Road heads west through the posher parts of Dublin 4. On a sunny autumn day the tree lined avenues are a slice of heaven. Veering left we’re on the Merrion Road with the Merrion Centre on the far side. The walk to Blackrock keeps to the coast for three and a half a kilometres, a forty minute walk, or four minutes if you take the Dart.

St Vincent’s University Hospital occupies a large campus at the junction of Merrion and Nutley. Mother Mary Aikenhead, founder of the Sisters of Charity in 1815, set up the original hospital at the Earl of Meath’s town house on Saint Stephen’s Green in 1834. It moved to its current site in 1970, and became associated with UCD who had moved to Belfield, just up the road, in the previous decade. It is a training centre for nurses, doctors, physiotherapists and radiographers. Ownership transferred from the Sisters to the State in 2020. Further on, Caritas Convalescent home was also established by the Sisters of Charity. It occupies four landscaped acres and the main convent building was refurbished at turn of the century.However, it has fallen victim to the Covid Pandemic and a liquidator was appointed last year, 2020.

Our Lady Queen of Peace church lies this side of the road. Its free standing spire is in the style of a Celtic round tower. Inside there is a magnificent rose window. The church was opened and blessed by Archbishop John McQuaid in 1953.

At the Merrion Gates we are poised on the cusp between city and suburb. Coast, railway and the hectic thoroughfare of the Rock Road converge. The landward side is well peppered with modern developments. To our left is mostly parkland and marsh with the Dartline along a narrow causeway and Dublin Bay beyond.

Booterstown is appropriately named. The Irish, Baile an Bhothair simply means the town of the road. Booterstown is said to be part of the ancient highway system of Gaelic Ireland. The routes connected Tara, seat of the High King, with the various kingdoms. Sli Chualann, connecting with Cuala, in south Dublin and north wicklow, is said, by some, to have passed by here. In later times it was a notorious spot for highwaymen. These days it is humming with traffic. The Rock Road practically rocks with the volume of it. Where are they all going? Where are they all coming from? The surge of metal and migrant is so constant, so everlasting that the beat becomes a bodhran, You could practically sing to it.

In Dublin next arrived, I thought it such a pity
To be soon deprived a view of that fine city
Well then I took a stroll, all among the quality
Bundle it was stole, all in a neat locality
One two three four five
Hunt the Hare and turn her down the rocky road
And all the way to Dublin, Whack fol lol le rah!

The Rocky Road to Dublin was written by Irish poet D.K. Gavan in the nineteenth century and popularised by English music hall performer, Harry Clifton. The story is about a Galway man who seeks his fortune setting off on the road to Dublin, bound for Liverpool. It was re-energised during the ballad boom of the sixties, particularly with performances by the Dubliners and Luke Kelly solo. It has, the details of its theme notwithstanding, transformed into something of a theme for Dublin Jacks. And for emphasis, Dublin has three syllables.

Something crossed me mind, when I looked behind
No bundle could I find upon me stick a wobblin’
Enquiring for the rogue, said me Connaught brogue
Wasn’t much in vogue on the rocky road to Dublin
Whack fol dol de day!

The ghost of identity with the ancient Sli Chualain might have inspired the naming of The Tara Towers Hotel. Considered a modern highrise (no, really), it cast its seven storey shadow over the coast until 2019, when it joined the rubble club. When I tied the knot with M in 83, we considered the Tara for our honeymoon night, but thought better of it, choosing the Montrose at Belfield instead. A new hotel, the Maldron, is under construction. With 4 stars, 140 rooms and 60 apartments, it will rise to a dizzying eight storeys. The Seamark Building next door also tops out at eight storeys. Like a long and shiny snake, it masks out the vista to the north west.

Booterstown Marsh emerges on our left. Defined by the building of the railway in the nineteenth century, the southern end was landscaped into Blackrock Park in 1870. Here at the northern end it remains a brackish marshland. An Taisce maintains the area as Booterstown Nature Reserve, particularly as a sanctuary for birds. While the Rock Road is the human highway, the Reserve is likened to an international airport for avian visitors. Brent Geese migrate in winter from the Canadian Arctic via Greenland while Swallows come all the way from Africa to summer here.There are Grey Herons, Kingfishers, Oyster Catchers, Coots, Mallard, Gulls and more. A small green area with benches allows you to admire this wild enclave. However, it’s best not to trample all over the wilderness itself. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be a wilderness.

Next door, Booterstown Station is an original station from the 1835 Dublin to Kingstown railway, standing aloof on the causeway linking Merrion and Blackrock. Across the road the house, Glena, has an interesting heritage. John McCormack died here in 1945. Born 1884 in Athlone, McCormack was Ireland’s top tenor of the twentieth century. His fame spread across the water, bolstered during the Great War by his renderings of such patriotic British ditties as Keep the Home Fires Burning and Long Way to Tipperary. He was keen to project his Irish patriotism too. His repertoire included The Wearing of the Green and other folksy numbers as well as a sizeable chunk of the songs of Thomas Moore, including The Harp that once Through Tara’s Halls and the Minstrel Boy.

His first farewell concert was in the Albert Hall in 1938, but with the outbreak of WWII he resumed fundraising concerts for the Red Cross and the war effort. Poor health forced him to retire to his house by the sea. Perhaps he sank a few a couple of doors up in the Old Punchbowl Pub which dates from 1779. It was opened by William Skully and played host to the local lords of Merrion and Pembroke, to notorious highwaymen and, most likely, their victims. There’s Traditional music sessions on Tuesday and Bluegrass on Saturday. The atmosphere is welcoming and warm, so no need to bring a heavy sweater, although Christy Moore has played here.

Past the Dart station, there’s treasure on the wasteland, twice a year. The Circus Field hosts Duffy’s Circus in Summer and Fossett’s in late Autumn. One winter, late in the last century, we took our wide eyed youngster to Il Florilegio, performed by Circo Darix Togni, an Italian Circus who were touring. We walked a guard of honour of performers, clowns, giants, grotesques and golden winged angels. We were enthralled, if in a strangely strange sort of way. At least, myself and M were, my young son less so. Looking up he wailed: Why did you bring me to this place? At least I knew that he was never going to run away to join the circus. Mind you, all fear evaporated during the performance which was a weird and wonderful trip in time, and to a different realm.

Il Florilegio alludes to a collection of flowers, in a literary sense, a miscellany. Founding father, Darix Togni, was a major circus star in his native Italy in the forties and formed the Circus with his brother in 1953. He died in 1976, aged only fifty four, but his sons and nephews revived Circo Darrix Togni which tours internationally. That night we were part of a medieval carnival, along with performers who merged theatre and spectacle across a spectrum of moods.

From here there’s respite from the road with a linear stretch of parkland leading on to Blackrock Park. Along the way is Williamstown Martello Tower. When built in the early nineteenth century it was lapped by the sea until cut off by the railway causeway. The construction of the Park to the south further marooned it. Its rather stubby appearance results from the fact that the ground floor is now largely buried. The tower is backed by a small estate of period redbricks, Emmet Square. There’s a good looking old style bar and a take-away on the main road, but behind the busy front, neat terraces are gathered around cobbled squares. This is a small, attractive estate with the aura of a close knit community. With posh Blackrock College right across the road, it looks like something of a working class enclave.

Blackrock College is a leading secondary school for boys situated on over fifty acres of parkland. It was founded in 1860 by the Holy Ghost Fathers. Besides its high achievements and regular supply of the topdogs in politics, culture and commerce, Blackrock is possibly most characterised as a renowned rugger school. It is for this aspect of its image that its denizens, indeed most everyone in the general locale, are roundly slagged in the Ross O’Carroll Kelly books written by Paul Howard. In the media, these are the people responsible for the Dartline accent. Mind you, Howard lives in Greystones so he hardly needs to take the Dart to mine a rich vein of bourgeoisie accent and attitude. Apparently the pupils regard Ross as their hero all the same. Student boarders stay at Williamstown Castle. This was originally an eighteenth century pile whose gothic flourishes were later added by Daniel O’Connell’s election agent Thomas O’Mara. Past pupils from these pages include Bob Geldof, Flann O’Brien and Robert Ballagh, and of course Brian O’Driscoll. In BOD we trust.

And on to Blackrock Park proper and the prospect of a good day in Blackrock. But another day.

Walkinstown’s Musical Roads – 3

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Castle Horse

Drimnagh Castle CBS  on the Long Mile Rd.

Home is where the heart is. Home is the streets and fields where we played. Out there in the newly named suburban segment of Dublin 12, it was mostly tar and cement. We could make out the gentle curves of the Dublin and Wicklow Mountains way down south past Tallaght, but the idyllic scenery and rollicking country fairs singing from our street signs were more our parents baggage then our own. 

I was born in 1955, in the first flowering of rock and roll. Bill Haley and His Comets had charted with Rock Around the Clock. Elvis was putting the finishing touches to Heartbreak Hotel. Carl Perkins was lacing up his Blue Suede Shoes. It was all very distant from Walkinstown’s Musical Roads. The popular opera of our musical patron saints held sway. 

John McCormack, born in Athlone in 1884, still loomed large in the public consciousness. He was regarded as the Voice of Ireland over the first few decades of the state. He moved from a singer in the Italian Classical tradition to plant a foot in the Irish folk tradition, becoming a peerless interpreter of Moore and French. This was the soundtrack of our youth, as the mortar in the Melodies dried, and the trees first blossomed and sang.

McCormack

Statue of McCormack in the Iveagh Gardens, Dublin.

Perhaps McCormack’s wilful folksiness tarnished his reputation as a classical vocalist, but it fuelled his popularity. And the great artist is as much personality and fame as it is quality and depth.His extraordinary voice and charisma earned him a career as a top selling recording artist and international concert performer. He became a naturalised American citizen in 1917. His success funded a rich lifestyle and he had extensive property in the US, Britain and Ireland. In 1928, in recognition of his charitable work, he was awarded a Papal title by Pope Pius XI. Thus he’s often styled Count John McCormack. His repertoire was well larded with religiosity too. He sang Panis Angelicus at the Eucharistic Congress of 1932 for an estimated half a million people. His last big gig was at the Royal Albert Hall in 1938, though he toured and recorded over the next five years in support of the Allied war effort. Finally retiring to a house in Booterstown, looking out on Dublin Bay, he died in 1945.

His avenue runs parallel to Bunting Road. Running north from a cul de sac, it merges with Balfe Avenue and then into Balfe Road East skirting Crumlin’s border. There are two right turns off John McCormack. The first, Crotty Avenue, is named for Elizabeth Crotty (1885-1960) who is the only woman commemorated. She was an Irish traditional musician from County Clare. Born Elizabeth Markham, she married Miko Crotty and established Crotty’s Pub in Kilrush. Her instrument was the concertina and she achieved some national fame through the programmes of Ciaran MacMathuna on RTE from 1951. This was a couple of years after building commenced on the Walkinstown estate, so she must have been a late addition.

The second is Esposito Road, most exotic sounding of the Musical Roads. Surely the sound of the Samba, of Latin Jazz, must permeate the bricks here, dangerous gauchos posing in the laneways. Well, not quite. Michele Esposito was an Italian composer and pianist who spent much of his life in Ireland, regenerating the neglected classical music system. Esposito founded and directed the Dublin Orchestral Society and was Professor of Composition at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, dominating the musical landscape from his arrival in 1882 until his death in 1929. His career overlapped with the great resurgence of Irish culture and Nationalism. In 1902 he scored the opera, the Tinker and the Fairy, from Douglas Hyde’s play, evoking a mythical Ireland emerging from the Celtic Twilight.

This little warren of roads also includes Bigger Road, O’Dwyer Road and O’Brien Road.

Francis Joseph Bigger (1863-1926) was born in County Antrim, the seventh son of a seventh son. He was a lawyer, antiquarian and Irish language revivalist, imbued with rural, De Valeran ideals. A big wheel in the Irish Cultural Revival, Bigger was a mentor of Herbert Hughes in the compilation of Songs of Uladh and Irish Country Songs. Living the life of a colourful laird, Bigger renovated Jordan’s Tower in County Down, which he renamed Castle Shane. This was in honour of Shane O’Neill, a troublesome Earl of Tyrone in Elizabeth’s reign. Shane occupied the fortress in 1565 in a complicated struggle with the MacDonnells of Scotland and the English. Dubbed Shane the Proud, by his detractors initially, though the name stuck with a positive association, he found himself locked in rebellion against the English and ended up with his head on a spike outside Dublin Castle in 1567. This fact filled everyone in my history class with glee at my expense. Perhaps then I decided to dispense with the O’Neill in my name, and become simply Shane Harrison. Meanwhile, Bigger, no musician, got a road named for him in Walkinstown’s Melodies.

shane3

Shane O’Neill Harrison poses as a Laird

Robert O’Dwyer (1862 – 1949), born to Irish parents in Bristol, moved to Dublin in 1897. He taught music at the Royal University of Ireland, a precursor of the National University and conducted the Gaelic League choir. With the spirit of the times, he turned towards Irish Nationalism which found voice in his composition. His three act opera, Eithne, was published in 1909, and vies for consideration as the first Irish language opera. Muirgheas by Thomas O’Brien Butler was a couple of years earlier, as was Esposito’s and Hyde’s the Tinker and the Fairy, though these were first performed in English. 

Vincent O’Brien (1871-1948) was born in Dublin and gave his first piano recital in 1885. Shortly afterwards, he became organist in Rathmines Church of Mary Immaculate, Refuge of Sinners before graduating to the Pro Cathedral in Marlborough Street. He initiated the Cecilian Movement in reaction to Enlightenment philosophy and founded the Palestrina Choir in 1898. Such devout Catholicism made him an obvious choice as musical director for the Eucharistic Congress of 1932. He was the first musical director of Radio Eireann, holding the office until 1941. His influence transcended narrow religious affiliation. He was a vocal coach for John McCormack, Margaret Burke Sheridan and James Joyce. The first two would achieve great fame with their singing voice, the third would infuse world art with an altogether different type of voice. Dubliners, Portrait of the Artist and Ulysses unite song and story in a way that effected a transformation of literature. 

Revolutionary_Joyce

James Joyce – Writer as Revolutionary

What would Vincent O’Brien make of it all? Perhaps he was misguided by Flann O’Brien’s fabulous assertion in the Dalkey Archive, that Joyce lived on happily in hiding, repairing semmets for the Jesuits in anticipation of their favour. But if he looked up from his road, he would see Walkinstown Library loom, repository of books and all the dangerous ideas they hold.