Life
1714-1783; Co. Sligo, ed. TCD; founded musical academy Dublin 1783; at
Lord Mornington’s instance, wrote travesty of Italian burletta, which
had been introduced to Dublin by D’Amici family, Midas (written at
Brownlow’s Lough Neagh house); resided King St. Dublin; Midas performed
Capel St. Theatre, 1761 and Covent Gdn 1764; other works incl. The
Golden Pippin (1773 Covent Gdn.), story of Paris’s choice; Tom
Thumb (Covent Gdn. 1780), adapted from Fielding; O’Hara was blind
after 1780; did portrait of William King; poss. author of ‘The Night
that Larry was Stretched’, but Tom Moore says that it was Dr. Burroughs[?].
RR DNB FQ CAB OCIL
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Notes
Peter Kavanagh, Irish Theatre (1946); ?1714-82; Midas,
An English Burletta (Crow St., 22 Jan 1762) 1762; The Gold Pippin,
Eng. burl. (CG 6 Feb 1773) 1773; The Two Misers, mus. farce (CG
21 Jan 1775) 1775, from F. de Falbaire’s Les Deux Avares (Paris
1770), mus. by Dibdin; April Day (Hay 22 Aug 1777) 1777, mus. by
Arnold; Tom Thumb (CG 3 Oct 1780) 1806, based on Fielding’s.
Quoted in Bartlett, Familiar Quotations; burlesque writer, 1714?-1782.
S. C. Hughes, The Church of S. Werburgh Dublin (1899), p.35; cited as son of Francis O’Hara, a rich merchant holding family pews at S. Werburgh Church.
Patrick Kennedy, Modern Irish Anecdotes (n.d.), includes chp. on
O’Hara, pp.48-49, in which the ‘last line an Italian glee then
popular - Che no’hanno crudelta - is rendered ‘Kane O’Hara’s
cruel tall’. The chapter is the obvious source of others such as
Charles A. Read, The Cabinet of Irish Literature (London, Glasgow,
Dublin, Belfast & Edinburgh: Blackie & Son [1876-78]); [St Patrick’s
Steeple]; the amiable fanatica per la musica kept a puppet show for his
young friends; the MS of a jeu d’esprit ‘translation’ Grigri
[Portuguese to French to English by chaplain of Irish regt. in Turkish
service &c.], Irish Monthly Magazine, 1832. See also Richard
Ryan, Biographia Hibernica, Irish Worthies (1821), Vol. II, p.457.
John O’Keeffe (Recollections) recalls that Mornington persuaded O’Hara to write Midas, which is ‘made up of Dublin jokes and by-sayings’, in opposition to the Italian burletta at Smock Alley. (Fitzpatrick, Dublin, 252).
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)