Preserving Irish Traditional Music in Chicago: Francis O'Neill

At various stages throughout this project, my research assistant Ani Karagianis and I have had the great privilege of spending time with Mary Lesch, Francis O’Neill’s great-granddaughter. Mary kindly gave us access to many photographs, documents, and other personal possessions that belonged to The Chief, and these, together with insights and stories she gathered from family or through her own research, became the heart of this project. We are deeply grateful, and we thank Mary sincerely for all the time and tea she so generously shared!

On one of many afternoons spent with Mary, she shared that while she knew her grandfather was an accomplished and well-known man, it was not until she was an adult, married and living in her native Chicago, that she became increasingly aware of the work he had done and the impact he had made, both in his role as General Superintendent of Police in Chicago from 1901-1905, and especially as a collector, curator, and publisher of Irish traditional music. It was Bill Currie, a Scottish piper and childhood friend of Mary’s husband, John, who first introduced the couple to other musicians in the city. Mary began to realize how respected her great-grandfather was for the work he had undertaken to preserve Irish music in Chicago, and how his legacy lived on through the music he gathered and the collections he published.

Mary gradually became aware of some academic writings about O’Neill in the 1970s and 80s, which were then followed by Nicholas Carolan’s 1997 book: A Harvest Saved: Francis O'Neill and Irish Music in Chicago, and the WTTW, Chicago Storiesdocumentary from 2001: Francis O’Neill: The Police Chief Who Saved Irish Music produced by Len Aronson. Len worked closely with Mary to ensure O’Neill’s documentary was historically accurate.

In 2004, Mary, herself, together with Chicago historian Ellen Skerrett, began the process of editing her great-grandfather’s memoirs that had been found in a family home. Over the course of the next four years, Mary and Ellen set about bringing Chief O’Neill’s Sketchy Recollections of an Eventful Life in Chicago, The Chief’s autobiography, to fruition. A change of the project’s editor at Northwestern University Press at a crucial juncture in 2007 concerned Mary and Ellen, but special interest shown in the book by the new editor, who had enjoyed a semester at University College Galway as a student, ensured the project made it to the finish line in 2008. The book is a wonderful resource that shares the details of an incredible life in O’Neill’s own words, supported by additional pertinent information, photographs, and documents that give the manuscript even more life and provide evidence of the authenticity of the events he described.

Though Mary’s research for the book brought many new insights, some details had long been familiar to her. First, how she knew that her father, Frank Mooney, born in 1900, spent much time at his grandparent’s home following the death of his uncle Rogers in 1904. Rogers was the fifth and last son lost to Francis and Anna O’Neill, and Mary believes her father’s presence brought her great-grandparents much comfort. Music was no longer heard at the O’Neill family home after Rogers’s death and, sadly, Mary’s father never learned to play traditional Irish music. But Mary did grow up in a home where she experienced music through her mother’s piano playing. Her second shared memory is of her mother’s other passions – reading and history – and often seeing her “reading some non-fiction while maybe stirring something on the stove with her other hand!” Mary knows her mother was aware of The Chief’s extensive collection of books that had been donated to the University of Notre Dame, and with such a strong interest in history, she had wanted to read some of these books, but never managed to do so.

Another interesting anecdote Mary shared was about a family connection to St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church in Hyde Park. Despite coming from a strong Catholic background, a new parish priest had tried to abolish music and dance in O’Neill’s locality around the time he left County Cork in 1865, and that mistrust of the Church remained with him.[1] But Mary understands that her great-grandfather was involved at some level with the rebuilding of St. Thomas’s Church, and the 1924 reconstruction contained an O’Neill family pew.  Even though Mary’s father, Frank, was greatly loved by the O’Neills, his sisters, Julia and Mary, were not so favored. The story goes that they were permitted to sit in the O’Neill pew if none of the family was in attendance, but Mary shares that “the O’Neills would be very disappointed if they got to Church and the rag-tag Mooneys were occupying their seats!”

In sharing what she is most proud of as the great-granddaughter of Chief O’Neill, Mary cites The Chief’s key lesson: to have goals in life and to pursue them. She realizes the significance of his work not only because of its magnitude and impact on the tradition today, but also for The Chief’s incredible resourcefulness to achieve all of this without having the essential skill himself for transcribing the music. He read and wrote music to some degree, but he needed James and Selena O’Neill and others with whom he collaborated to notate the tunes they collected. Two things strike Mary: first, when at times the selection committee’s discussions for the publications became fractious, he managed to remain apart from any disagreements and was not discouraged; clearly, he was a great leader of people. And second, she believes that his “great internal understanding of organization – of himself personally, his police work, and his music – was key to the remarkable extent of his success.”

Mary takes great joy in seeing the legacy of Francis O’Neill live on through academic research – both historical and musical - and was grateful to make her own significant contribution through the publication of Sketchy Recollections. She appreciates the existence of organizations such as the Francis O’Neill Club,[2] and the Irish Music School of Chicago[3] that hosts the Francis O’Neill Arts Week each summer. She welcomes the celebrations of her great-grandfather’s life both here in Chicago and at his birthplace in County Cork. In Chicago musicians gather at O’Neill’s mausoleum at Mount Olivet cemetery and in Ireland at his statue in the village of Tralibane musicians play in homage to The Chief.  And above all, she takes great pride in the fact that his name lives on in the music he collected and that his Irish music continues to be played across the city and around the world.