Life
1814[err.
1813]-1879 [pseud. and stage-name of Edmund O’Rourke; var. Edmond],
b. Dublin; published a long poem, Man’s Mission: A Pilgrimage
to Glory’s Goal (1852); full-length verse play The Cagot or
Heart for Heart, being a dramatization of John Banim (Lyceum, 6 Dec.
1856); wrote several librettos for Michael Balfe, including, in collaboration
with Augustus Harris, The Rose of Castile (1857); his "Lily
of Killarney" set to music by Benedict [var. Balfe]; manager of the
Lyceum Theatre with Ben Webster from August 1858 to 1859, and again [unknown
if with Webster] from 1861 to 1862, an arrangement which made him £13,000
by 1862; produced a number of his own plays at the Lyceum; played Danny
Mann in Boucicault’s The Colleen Bawn at the Adephi, 18 July
1860; wrote Peep o’ Day or Savoureen Deelish, a stage-version
of John Banim’s novels John Doe and The Nowlans which
contained a scene in which the heroine is saved from live-burial, the
play running at the Adephi, 9 Nov. 1861-Dec. 1862; joint-lessee Drury
Lane, 1862-66; long poems The Bequest of My Boyhood (1863) and
O’Ruark’s Bride: The Blood Speck in the Emerald (1865);
dramatised Lever’s Charles O’Malley for Drury Lane as
Galway Go Bragh, himself taking the role of Mickey Free; opened
Her Majesty’s Theatre, Haymarket in 1866 with Oonagh; attempted
to popularise Shakespeare at Drury Lane, but lost all his money; retired
from Drury Lane management, Sept. 1866; travelled to America, acting and
writing for about three years, and appearing in New York, 1867; returned
to London and had several sucessful productions including Eileen Oge,
or Dark the Hour Before Dawn (1871); d. 29 Sept. in his house in Russell
Square, London; bur. Kensal Green Cemetary. PI DNB DIB DIW OCIL
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Plays
The Cagot; or, Heart for Heart (London: J. Mitchell [1856]); The Husband of an Hour (NY: Samuel French 1857; Boston: W. V. Spencer [1857]; London: T. H. Lacy [n.d.]); The Rose of Castile (London: Cramer [1857]; Philadelphia: Ledger Job Printing Office 1867) [opera composed by Michael Balfe, libretto by Edmund Falconer and Augustus Harris]; Satanella; or, The Power of Love (London: Published and sold in the theater, [1858]) [opera composed by Michael Balfe, libretto by Falconer with Harris]; Extremes; or, Men of the Day (London: T. H. Lacy [n.d.]; NY: Samuel French [1858]; Victorine (London: Published and sold in the theater [1859]) [libretto to 3-act opera composed by Alfred Mellon]; Chrystabelle; or, The Rose Without a Thorn (London: T. H. Lacy [1860]); The Family Secret (London: T. H. Lacy [1860]); Next of Kin (London: T. H. Lacy [1860]); Ruy Blas (London: T. H. Lacy [1860]) [after Victor Hugo]; Too Much for Good Nature (London: T. H. Lacy; NY: Samuel French [1860]; Peep o’ Day; or, Savourneen Deelish (Chicago: Dramatic [1861]; NY: Samuel French [1867]; Eileen Oge; or, Dark’s the Hour before the Dawn (Chicago: Dramatic 1876; London: T. H. Lacy [n.d.]; rep. London/NY: Samuel French [n.d.]; Does He Love Me? (London: T. H. Lacy [n.d.]; London: Samuel French [n.d.]); and Galway-go-Bragh [q.d.].
Poetry
Man’s Mission: A Pilgrimage to Glory’s Goal (London: Bolton 1852; rep. 1865); Memories, the Bequest of My Boyhood (London: Tinsley 1863); Murmurings in the May and Summer of Manhood [... &c.] (London: [q.pub.] 1865); O’Ruark’s Bride: The Blood Speck in the Emerald (1865).
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Criticism
Stephen Watt, Joyce, O’Casey, and the Irish
Popular Theatre (Syracuse UP 1991), pp.73-74.
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Notes
D. J. O’Donoghue, Poets of Ireland (Dublin: Hodges Figgis & Co.1912), lists Edmond [sic] O’Rourke, Man’s Mission, a Pilgrimage to Glory’s Goal, anon. poem
(1852); The Cagot, or Heart for Heart, 5 act verse play (1856);
The Rose of Castile, libretto (1858); Chrystabelle, or the Rose
Without a Thorn, extrav. in verse (185?); Victorine, libretto
(1859); The Bequest of My Boyhood, poem (1863); Murmurings in
the May and Summer o[f] Manhood; O’Ruark’s Bride,
or the Bloo[d] Spark in the Emerald, and Man’s Mission
(1865); in 1858 and 1861 directed Lyceum Theatre, where many of his plays
were produced.
Allardyce Nicoll, A History of English Drama 1660-1900 [2nd edn.] (Cambridge UP 1959), Vol. 5, lists Falconer’s first productions, many of which remain unpublished. [Note that some Flaconer plays are available in microform.]
Robert Hogan, ed., Towards a National Theatre, Dramatic Criticism of Frank Fay (Dublin: Dolmen 1970), p.109: Edmund Falconer, actually Edmund O’Rourke, was the original actor in the part of Danny Mann; he also wrote Eileen Oge, or Dark the Hour Before Dawn, played in 1871; also Peep o’Day or Savourneen Deelish, based on Banim’s John Doe and the Nowlans, played Nov. 1861-Dec.1862, it contains a sensation scene in which the heroine is saved from being buried alive. Note Falconer’s Peep o’ Day, cited in calendar of Hogan , ed., Dictionary of Irish Literature (1979), and contemporaneous with Eugene O’Curry’s Manuscript materials of Ancient Irish History (1861).
Seamus Deane, ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 2, cites The Lily of Killarney (1862) by Julius Benedict (1804-85).
Belfast Central Public Library holds Extremes [n.d.]; Memories (1863); Murmurings in the May and Summer of Manhood (1865).
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)