Life
1883-1942 [Peadar Ó Cearnaigh]; b. Dorset St., Dublin, ed. Model
School, Schoolhouse Lane, and Christian Brothers, Marino; wrote ‘The
Soldier’s Song’, printed in Irish Freedom, ed. Bulmer
Hobson, in 1912, song adopted by Irish Volunteers; property and stage
manager with the Abbey Theatre, 1911-1916; fought 1916 Rising at Jacob’s
Factory; interned 1920; censor in Portlaoise Prison, 1922-23; returned
to his trade as a house-painter after the Civil War; Brendan Behan was
a nephew; issued new stanza protesting against ‘British-planned partition
of Ulster’ in 1937; d. at home, Inchicore, Nov. 1942; he is buried
in old Drumcondra Graveyard (behind The Cat and Cage); there is
a life by Seamus de Burca (1957) who also wrote a Behan memoir (1985).
DIB DIW DIL DIH OCIL
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Works
Peadar Kearney, My Dear Eve ... Letters from Ballykinlar Internment
Camp, 1921 (P. J. Bourke, 1975), 45pp. [var., intro. Seamus de Burca,
Dublin: Litho Press 1976, 46pp.; Cathach 1996/97.]
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Criticism
Seamus de Burca, The Soldier’s Song: The Story of Peador Ó
Cearnaigh (P. J. Bourke, Dublin 1957).
Cheryl Herr, ed., For The Land She Loved (1991)
pp.57, p. 69).
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Notes
Desmond Hickey & J. E. Doherty, Dictionary
of Irish History (1980, 1987); give bio-dates, 1883-1942; cite‘The
Soldier’s Song’ as collaboration with Patrick Heeney; Kearney
a friend of Collins; interned at Ballykinlar, 1920-21; official censor
at Portlaoise during Civil War; best known songs are ‘The Tri-Coloured
Ribbon’; ‘down by the Glenside’, and ‘Whack Fol the
Diddle’.
Cathach Books (1996/97) lists Peadar Kearney, My Dear Eve ... Letters from Ballykinlar Internment Camp, 1921 (P. J. Bourke, 1975), 45pp. [var., intro. Seamus de Burca, Dublin: Litho Press 1976, 46pp.
“The Soldier’s Song”: is quoted by name
only by Peter in The Plough and the Stars: ‘I felt a burnin’
lump in me throat when I head th’ band playin; “The Soldiers’
Song” [sic], rememberin’ last hearin’ it marchin’
in military formation with th’ people starin’ on both sides
at us, carrin’ with us the pride an; resolution o’ Dublin to
th’ gave of Wolfe Tone.’ (Sean O’Casey, Three Plays,
Pan edn. 1980 p.163).
Rona M Fields, A Society on the Run: A Pyschology of Northern Ireland (Penguin 1973), quotes: ‘Twas down by the glenside I met an old woman/A picking young nettles/She ne’re saw me coming/I listened awhile to the song she was humming/Glory, O Glory I, to the bold Fenian men’ (Ballad of Bereaved Woman’).
“The Old Orange Flute”, anthem of the Orange Order, was written by Peadar Kearney as a parody of Orangeism and originally published in Arthur Griffith's paper Sinn Féin (Patrick Maume, Irish Diaspora List, Bradford; Feb. 2004.)
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)