Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 19 September 2024

Making an Irish Free State City – The Lectures of Dr Annie Patterson

Reading the Cork Examiner from 1920 to 1930 and mapping the cultural changes in Cork City, there are some people who have been recognised in Cork history and many others whose memory has faded. Dr Annie Patterson is one such character, who appears regularly in the Cork Examiner from 1924 to 1934. Her championing of Irish music through her curation of public talks and courses is very notable in the write-ups of her work in the newspaper.

Annie’s obituary in 1934 in the Cork Examiner on 17 January describes how she forged a career in, as the newspaper describes, as one of the “most outstanding figures in contemporary Irish musical circles”.

Born in Lurgan, County Armagh in 1868, Annie was educated at Alexandra College. At an early age she showed a love for the Irish folk music. At the age of nineteen she graduated with a BA and Bachelor of Music. Two years later she became a Doctor of Music – the first woman between Britain and Ireland to achieve such as a distinction.

Annie was an organist at several Dublin churches between 1887-1897. She had huge interests in the Irish Cultural Revival especially in the realm of Irish music. She composed the music for ‘Go mairidh ár nGaedhilg slán’, an anthem for the Gaelic League. In 1892 Annie was appointed Examiner in Music at the Royal University of Ireland and was re-elected to this post in 1900, having previously been conductor of the Hampstead Harmonic Society in London.

In 1897 Annie was the prime mover in the organisation of a committee to curate the Feis Cheoil music festival, which is now one of the outstanding annual events in Irish musical circles. The Dr Annie Patterson Medal is still awarded in her honour at the festival.

Annie resigned her post in Dublin. She came to Cork, where she became Organist at St Anne’s Church, Shandon. In 1900 she was appointed Examiner in Music to the Irish Intermediate Board of Education. She also held a similar post of Examiner at the Cork School of Music during the years 1914-1919 and to the Leinster School of Music, 1919-23.

In early July 1924 Cork Corporation formally sponsored a lectureship in Irish music at University College Cork. Annie applied for the post and was successful. Her interest in educating the general public on Irish Traditional Music or Irish Folk Music was very evident from the outset of this job.

Annie’s first big educational project was aimed at schools across the country as she created a selection of Irish and Anglo-Irish songs, set to their traditional melodies and provided with a suitable pinaforte accompaniment.

By mid-October 1924 Annie commenced a public lecture series course of about thirty lectures on Saturday afternoons. A small fee of 5 shillings was charged for the entire course. These talks were spliced with musical illustrations, vocal and instrumental, and supplied by prominent local musicians. The topics that Annie covered ranged from Ancient Irish Harpers to Collections of Irish Music to the Development of Irish Music.

By the time the 30^th public lecture came around on 20 June 1925, Annie had made strong public calls on the need for the practical revival of Irish Traditional Music or Irish Folk Music and to connect it to the evolving Irish identity with the embryonic Irish Free State. Against the backdrop internationally of new sweeping jazz music from the US, Annie also noted the need for Irish Folk Music to connect across other instruments and not just focus on pianoforte – that it should have a larger reach across musicians and hence to the general public.

The Cork Examiner notes that the first season of Annie’s public lecture series as having small public numbers. So, Annie embarked upon a second series of 30 public lectures from October 1925-June 1926. By the close of the end lecture on 25 June 1926, the spacious examination hall at the University College was crowded to hear Annie give her closing lecture of the session.  It was entitled “Utilising National Musical Traditions”, which explored the distinguishing features between the bardic and country traditions.

Unrelenting in her passion for promoting Irish Traditional Music, Annie began her 30 week public lecture course again in October 1926 to June 1927. With larger crowds from the second season, Annie started her course again in mid-October 1927 and it ran to June 1928. In addition, during 1927-1928, Annie was given an opportunity to perform her Irish traditional arrangements on the new Cork radio station 6CK. It opened in late March 1927 and the Cork programme were relayed through the national Irish Free State 2RN. 2RN began broadcasting in Dublin on 1 January 1926 and was the first radio broadcasting station in the Irish Free State. A glance at the radio programme across Spring and Summer 1928 shows Annie was a regular contributor.

From the winter of 1928 to the winter of 1933, Annie continued her 25-week course and detailed public lecture series in Traditional Irish Music. In addition, she became a regular contributor to the Cork Examiner covering topics on opera to producing musical selections on radio.

For St Patrick’s Day 1933, a special Irish programme entitled Rambles in Erin, was broadcast from the New York Studios of the Columbia Broadcasting system It included Irish music, songs and a symphony orchestra played compositions by Annie.

In the first week of January 1934, the national R2N radio station noted her absence due to illness. She died from a cold on 16 January at her residence at 43 South Mall. Her remains were removed to Dublin by motor hearse. She was buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery. Votes of sympathy were passed by Cork Corporation and Cork Harbour Commissioners and other bodies in the days that followed her death.

Annie’s obituary in the Cork Examiner on 17 January 1934 highlights that during the ten years of Annie’s lectureship at the University College, interest in Irish music showed first a gradual and then a rapid growth. The newspaper notes: “Annie was appreciated by the College authorities and her students alike as one deeply interested in her subject and possessed of a profound knowledge of its every phase. Her lectures never failed to draw a full gathering of students to the hall and she spent much time in making interesting listening about Irish musicians, their work and their characteristics”.

In addition, Annie’s many contributions to musical literature were widely read and appreciated. She continuously sought to tell the story of Irish music through a number of books, which included such titles as The Story of Oratorio, Schumann, The Native Music of Ireland, Our National Musical Heritage, Ceol na nGaedheal, The Profession of Music and How to Prepare It.

Kieran’s Upcoming September Tours (end of season), all free, 2 hours, no booking required:

• Saturday 21 September, Fitzgerald’s Park: The People’s Park, meet at the park band stand, 2pm.

• Sunday 22 September, Stories from Blackrock and Mahon, meet in adjacent carpark at base of Blackrock Castle, 2pm.

Caption:

1271a. Portrait of Dr Annie Patterson, late nineteenth century (source: Department of Music, UCC; many thanks to all who helped in the Department in providing the image).

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 12 September 2024

Making an Irish Free State City – The Tailteann Games

August 1924 coincided with the inauguration of the Tailteann Games in Dublin. It was the brainchild of Corkman J J Walsh TD, Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, who organised it with a strong committee. The Games were a nod to ancient funerary games in Ireland in Pre-historic Ireland, but were also pitched as a way to progress the narratives of the Irish Free State. The Games were a type of political healing mechanism event by bringing people together whilst also working on Ireland’s internationalisation programme and promoting culture, tourism, industries and pastimes.

Souvenir reports of the Games in the National Library, Dublin highlight that between 2 August and 17 August 1924, approximately 6,500 competitors took part across 20 different events. Some of the international athletes were fresh from the Paris Olympics of 1924. There were participants from across Ireland including some from Cork City and County. There was not much success for Cork sports people but the ethos of the games makes for very interesting reading in the study of the Irish Free State.

The Cork Examiner outlines that on Saturday 2 August 1924 historic scenes were witnessed when the Aonach Tailteann or Tailteann Games were opened. J J Walsh, TD, as Director of the Games, delivered the opening address in the presence of the Governor-General of the Irish Free State Tim Healy.

At night the Irish Governor-General and eminent visitors were entertained at a distinguished banquet. Noted representatives of all Continents being present from the United States of America, Brazil, Argentine, Canada, India, Persia (modern day Iran), Italy, France, Spain and Portugal, Belgium, Germany and Great Britain.

In the absence of President Cosgrave, Senator and poet William Butler Yeats presided at the banquet and in welcoming the guests said the nation was celebrating its coming of age; “In our long struggle for national independence our people have been scattered through the world, in the seventeenth century our nobility, and in the nineteenth our poor, and I see round me many representatives from those countries of the old world into which our nobility carried their swords, and many representatives of the new world into which after our great famine, and in the years of poverty, which followed our poor have carried their labour. It was natural and fitting that we should call you together, now that at last we are an independent nation, a victor at last in the struggle of centuries”.

On Sunday 4 August, the Games began in earnest. From early morning the staff at railway termini in Dublin witnessed tens of hundreds flocking into the city. There were many choices of venue to enjoy out-door sport. At Croke Park hurling and football matches were hosted. On the opening weekend, Ireland easily defeated England in hurling and in the football event Leinster defeated Connaught by 1 goal 1 point.

A week later, at the close of the international hurling contest the cup and medals were presented to the Irish team who had won the national football final. The presentation was made by Fenian and journalist Mr John Devoy. Mr J J Walsh in introducing John Devoy said Mr Devoy had come over especially from New York by ship to witness the revival of the ancient games of Ireland. J J Walsh outlined that he was proud of the fact that no less than five Irish provincial teams in international hurling and two in international football were fielded against teams from America and UK teams from Scotland and Wales.

National Golf Tournaments were run at Portmarnock and Dún Laoghaire. The handball competitions were carried on at Clondalkin and Ballymeen, while the chess and boxing were conducted at Trinity College and Portobello Barracks. Cork Corporation Councillor Seán Good is noted as taking part on the chess tournament.

There were feasts of music at the Metropolitan Hall, where competitors in traditional singing, harp, uileann pipes, fiddle and cinema band contests were taking place. During the ensuing days, programmes at the Hall also embraced from soprano solo, mezzo-soprano, tenor voices to bass solo competition to wind instrument combinations and choir singing. One of the major competitions in the singing class was confined to male and female singers who had won first prize distinction at the Feis Ceoil or any other town or regional musical competitions. They would be judged on the interpretation and selection of songs and their potential to have a career in singing and music. The great feature of the contest was that Mr John McCormack, the great tenor, was the adjudicator. 

In the second week of the Games, billiard competitions were held at the Catholic Club on O’Connell Street, yachting and motor boat racing was held in the beautiful harbour of Dún Laoghaire, motor cycle racing in the Phoenix Park, a 60 kilometre cycling race, athletic contests in Croke Park including javelin, decathlon and long jump, band contests at Ballsbridge, lawn tennis at Landsdowne Road, swimming (with some entrants from Australia), archery in Lord Iveagh’s gardens and diving at an outdoor lake at the Zoological Gardens.

Rowing was held at Islandbridge. Over several days, the rowing fixture drew large crowds of spectators anxious to see the famous Australian crews rowing in the contests. For the rowing event as well a big number of entries have been received. Competing national crews coming from Cork, Galway, Waterford, Limerick, Derry and Down. Cork’s representative club of Shandon Rowing Club were unfortunately not successful in their bid for first place in their class.

Tug o’ war and gymnastic contests at the RDS in Ballsbridge, 3,000 metre steeple chase at Ballsbridge, claybird shooting. In Dublin’s Theatre Royal aCharles VilliersStanford work called Shamus O’Brien was produced. It was a new comic opera set after the 1798 rebellion in the mountains of County Cork.

  Dancing competitions were held in hornpipe, reel and jigs at Dublin’s Mansion House. The Cork Examiner details that the latter dancing events attracted over 560 competitors from across Ireland (including Cork) and from further afield from Great Britain and USA.

On the last days of the Games on 17 August, the individual War Pipes Competitions opened at Ballsbridge. Amongst the competitors were the following – Tadgh Ó Craodhaligh of the Lee Pipers, Cork and Sean Ryan of 106 Gerald Griffin Street, Cork.

In the weeks that followed Minister J J Walsh deemed the games a success and aimed to host them again in 1928. They were hosted four years later and again in 1932.

Kieran’s Upcoming September Tours (end of season), all free, 2 hours, no booking required:

• Saturday 14 September, Cork South Docklands; meet at Kennedy Park, Victoria Road, 2pm.

• Saturday 21 September, Fitzgerald’s Park: The People’s Park, meet at the park band stand, 2pm.

• Sunday 22 September, Stories from Blackrock and Mahon, meet in adjacent carpark at base of Blackrock Castle, 2pm.

Caption:

1270a. Front cover of daily schedule of Tailteann Games, Dublin, August 1924 (source: National Library of Ireland, Dublin).