Teresa O’Donnell

Sisters of the Revolutionaries


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and Feis Ceoil. Hardebeck was famed for his arrangements of Irish folk songs, and his style influenced Mary Brigid’s arrangements of Irish airs for voice and harp, and voice and piano, many of which are kept at the Pearse Archive in Kilmainham Gaol.

      As the Pearse children grew and developed, it became increasingly clear that Patrick was the force that united them. Ruth Dudley Edwards described the children as a ‘mixed bunch’ in which ‘[a]ll the will seems to have gone into the two eldest, Margaret and Patrick, while the young pair, Willie and Mary Bridget [sic] ... were natural followers’.12 Mary Brigid and Willie may have been ‘natural followers’, but they were undoubtedly enthusiastic ones, as Patrick took a genuine interest in each of his siblings’ pursuits. Much has been written about the close bond that existed between Patrick and Willie. They attended the same school, socialised together and enjoyed pastimes such as boxing. Each of the sisters also shared interests with Patrick. Margaret and Patrick’s close bond was centred around their shared passions of religion and education. They regularly attended religious services together, such as the ceremonies of Holy Week and Forty Hours’ Devotion at St Andrew’s Church, Westland Row. Patrick and Margaret made annual visits on the 2nd of August to the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Merchant’s Quay to gain a plenary indulgence from the Portiuncula Indulgence or the Pardon Prayer of St Francis.

      On one occasion, Patrick was so keen to gain an indulgence that he jumped off a moving tram after it failed to stop near the church. Unfortunately, he was injured and his face was covered in blood. Fearing that he might be stopped and questioned by police, Patrick ran home.13 Their attendance at religious ceremonies was, however, usually less dramatic. Mary Brigid and Patrick shared a love of the Irish language and Irish folklore. He fostered in her a love of the language by teaching her to read and write Gaelic script, which he had been taught at the CBS. Patrick also read aloud passages from books he studied on Irish legends, including tales about Diarmuid and Gráinne and the death of Cúchulainn.14

      Each of the siblings in turn devoted themselves to whichever project Patrick was most passionate about at the time. After he completed his studies, he was appointed pupil-teacher at Westland Row. Too young to enter university, he occupied his time with the development and promotion of Irish culture and the Irish language. In 1896, he and his friend and classmate Edward (Éamonn) O’Neill formed the New Ireland Literary Society. The first of the Society’s regular weekly meetings took place on 1 December 1896 at the Star and Garter Hotel in D’Olier Street. This debating and literary society was an important forum for Patrick to showcase his talents and to hone his skills as an orator. He delivered lectures, participated in debates, gave recitations, and contributed to the Society’s journal, Debate. Topics embraced a wide range of subjects. On 19 January 1897, the debate was ‘That Ireland is Becoming Anglicised’15 and on 1 March 1898, Edward O’Neill, E.A. Murray and James Creevey debated the motion ‘That Rudyard Kipling is not a true poet’.16

      Irish themes, however, generally dominated the debates. Although Willie participated in a debate in February 1898 on the motion ‘That the Milesian Invasion of Ireland as Recorded by the Bards is a Myth’, Patrick was the central and most active member of the Society,17 giving three lectures on Irish subjects between March 1897 and January 1898, including his inaugural presidential address, ‘The Intellectual Future of the Gael’, on 19 October 1897 at Costigan’s Hotel, Upper O’Connell Street.18 This lecture along with ‘Gaelic Prose Literature’ and ‘The Folk Songs of Ireland’ were published as Three Lectures on Gaelic Topics by M.H. Gill & Son in 1898.

      Mary Brigid and Margaret performed at several of the Society’s social evenings. In April 1897, the sisters performed a piano duet, Whispers from Erin (c.1860) by William Smyth Rockstro. This fantasy for piano was based on two popular contemporary Irish airs, ‘Oft in the Stilly Night’ and ‘The Young May Moon’ by Thomas Moore. Mary Brigid also played an arrangement of the overture to the Lily of Killarney (1862) by Julius Benedict and was listed as the accompanist for the evening, despite being only thirteen years of age.19 The evening also included recitations by Patrick and Edward O’Neill from William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Hamlet. Despite the small stage and lack of costumes or backdrop, the recitations were entertaining and well received; the performances of various amateur singers, however, were less impressive.

      Mary Brigid was tasked with accompanying the singers, none of whom provided sheet music for accompaniment. When she asked Patrick if he had any idea what key might best suit their voices, he replied the ‘common or garden key’.20 She informed him that there was no such key, but he reassured her that they all sang in a standard key. Baffled by his ignorance, she left him ‘blissfully unconscious of his absurdity’.21 Mary Brigid’s considerable musical ability and acute musical ear enabled her to accompany the various performers on the night by vamping along with chords. Towards the end of the evening, however, one of the soloists who impressed her with his excellent voice during rehearsal, struggled to sing in tune. She later recalled the horrific experience:

      he had a nice voice. Afterwards his song would also have been very nice if he had only remained in the one key, instead of roaming through about six! For three verses of ‘The Risin’ of the Moon’ I chased him madly all over the piano, wondering which of us would break down first. By the time the moon had fully risen the piano part was ended, and I was a complete wreck! Pat’s ‘common or garden key’ seemed to have rather an elastic compass!22

      The New Ireland Literary Society disbanded in 1898 because Patrick was increasingly preoccupied with his studies and his involvement in the Gaelic League (Conradh na Gaeilge), founded in 1893 by Douglas Hyde and Eoin MacNeill to preserve Irish as the national language of Ireland and to encourage the study of Gaelic literature. In 1887, the Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language had also attempted to promote Irish by advocating that it should be taught in schools and spoken more frequently, but it was the League that would succeed in popularising the language and reviving various Gaelic practices. The final decades of the nineteenth century were marked by the formation of various cultural movements, such as the Gaelic Athletic Association (1884), the National Literary Society (1892), Feis Ceoil (1896) and the Irish Literary Theatre (1898). These movements were part of the reawakening of a national Irish consciousness and a renewal of national spirit, which it was hoped would result in increased cultural and material prosperity.

      The Pearse siblings participated in many contemporary cultural movements. They were, undoubtedly, influenced by Patrick’s cultural interests, which primarily centred around the promotion and development of the Irish language. The family’s participation in cultural movements was not unusual as many young people were involved in cultural and/or political activism during this period. As Mary Colum, the author and literary critic commented, young people had ‘a desire for self-sacrifice, a devotion to causes; everyone was working for a cause, for practically everything was a cause’.23

      Patrick was the first of the Pearse family to join the Gaelic League, in 1896, and was soon followed by Willie and Mary Brigid. From 1897 onwards, he became more prominent in the League and more vocal at branch meetings. He was an active contributor to the weekly bilingual newspaper Fáinne an Lae, and, in 1898, was co-opted on to the Executive Committee (Coiste Gnótha). In the spring of 1898, he sat the Matriculation and shortly after commenced studying for a Bachelor of Arts in French, English and Celtic (Irish) at the Royal University, and a Bachelor of Law at the King’s Inns and Trinity College, Dublin. Patrick’s participation in the activities of the Gaelic League often distracted him from his studies, but his commitment to the organisation resulted in his appointment as secretary of the Publications Committee from 1900 to 1903 and editor of its newspaper, An Claidheamh Soluis (The Sword of Light), in 1903.

      The burden of work often took its toll on Patrick but his family were at hand to support him, even to the point of ensuring that he was not late for giving lectures or attending Sunday morning mass. When the Pearse family lived in Sandymount, each of them took it in turn to call Patrick from 8.00am onwards for midday mass at St Andrew’s Church. Despite never leaving the house before 11.53am, when the train signals dropped, he never missed the train.24 Patrick’s tardiness, and apparently, chaotic life, intrigued his younger sister who wrote a humorous account of several memorable incidents.

      As the shrill whistle sounded, and the train steamed into the station, he would be seen