A RECORD OF AUTHORS, ARTISTS AND MUSICAL COMPOSERS
BORN IN THE COUNTY OF CORK. By John Gilbert.
Thomas Hoveden who attained distinction as an artist in
America, was born in 1841. His father was keeper of the
Bridewell in Dunmanway. When six years of age he became an
inmate of the Cork Orphanage. At fourteen he was apprenticed
for seven years to Mr. Tolerton, carver and gilder, on the
Parade, where he worked afterwards as journeyman. His
employer, noticing his art ability, generously paid for his
instruction. After a few years of journeyman's work he
migrated to America, and commenced his art career, completing
his studies in Paris. In the Salon he exhibited his pictures
"In Hoc Signio Vinces," which afterwards was hung in the
National Gallery of New York, and was counted the picture of
the year. Returning to his adopted country, he devoted
himself to painting American subjects, his masterpiece being
"Breaking Home Ties," which at the Chicago Exhibition
attracted unusual attention. HIs beautiful life ended in
heroic death, leaping onto a railway line to save a child, he
was caught and crushed beneath the engine's ponderous wheels.
William Magrath, of whose work in oils and water-colours
there are two examples in the School of Art, began his career
in the Cork School. In his days there was little to be
learnt there. His subsequent career was remarkable for hard
knocks and unassisted hard work. Emigrating to America, he
there progressed so much that he attained a place in the
National Academy of Design in New York, equivalent to
membership in the Royal Academy of London. He is an artist
who possesses the gift of seeing and depicting all that is
beautiful and good of this island, and his landscape and
genre pictures are racy of the soil. He also paints classical
subjects, and several of his drawings have been reproduced in
black and white.
Seamus O'Brien (born in Glenbrook) is a young sculptor,
who, finding little encouragement in his native land, has
gone to San Francisco, where his genius has found immediate
acknowledgement. He was warmly welcomed by the art critics of
the Press and by lovers of art, and deservedly so. In his
youth life was such a struggle as "only the pen of a Murgher
[?] could adequately describe." In spite of this, he won the
silver medal in the National Art Competition at South
Kensington. Not only is he an inspired artist, but he has
great literary gifts. His stories, critics say, are "much out
of and beyond the ordinary." He also is a playwright, and has
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produced three sucessful plays. "Malachi Desmond," "Duty,"
and "`67."
William Barry, of Carrigtwohill, a student at the Cork
School of Art, and afterwards at London and Paris, left his
native country at an early age, and is now a most sucessful
portrait painter in America.
Paul J. McSwiney (born 1856, died 1889) was a young
composer of great promise. Possessing a cultured mind and
patriotic ideas and aspirations, he felt that he should
utilise his gifts in the production of an opera which should
be thoroughly Irish. The bardic period attracted him, seeming
to him admirably suited for his purpose. So enthusiastically
he set to work on his opera of "Amergien." He not only wrote
the libretto, solos, choruses, and orchestral parts, but he
designed and assisted in making the costumes, and finally
performed in the opera. In 1881, "Amerigen" was sucessfully
produced at the Opera House. D'Oyly Carte, on hearing some of
the music, sought an introduction to the composer.
Afterwards, in America, he composed a cantata, a Gaelic Idyll
- "The Bard and the Knight," which was produced in Irish at
the Steinway Hall, New York. Mr. St. John Lacy said of him:
"If he had a thorough musical training there was in the
making of him another Wallace."
James Christopher Marks, now organist in America, is a
musical genius. Music seemed to haunt him. Often when persons
were talking to him he would unconciously break into humming
or softly whistling some musical inspiration. He has written
songs, choral pieces, services, pianoforte and violin solos
of most original and scholarly character. The superiority of
his compositions was so appreciated by Novello, the
publisher, that he readily accepted any of his works.
Louis Blake (born 1862), with his father, Henry A. Blake,
left Cork for America when seven years old, at which early
age he wrote his first musical composition. From his father's
ana mother's families he inherited the musical gift, which
rapidly developed as he grew into manhood. His father settled
in New Orleans, where Louis soon became a popular composer.
In a volume of his compositions lying before me are fifteen
songs, a march, and two dances. Of one of his songs a critic
wrote: "Though he has written many and many a thing
incomparably finer, that song "We may never meet again," has
caught the rhythm of the heart of the times." So popular was
it that everywhere in the streets was heard from street
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organs and whistling boys the witching melody.
He composed a three-act comic opera, "The Khadive,"
another of two acts, "Ollamus, King of Utopia," two musical
comedies, "A Military Maid," and "The Striped Petticoat," and
collaborated with his brother "Miah," and Henry B. Edwards in
"The Royal Joke." The genial and greatly esteemed composer
died about 1909.
Matthew O'Riordan, uncle of Louis Blake (born 1850, died
1884), left his native city and settled in America. A critic
described him: "The famous artist who began his career on the
Vandeville stage with his 'Tumbleronican` speciality, was
gifted with a natural born genius in concocting original
melodies, united his talent with his work, and speedily came
into notice as one of the most brilliant composers of the
day." In the volume of his music lying on my desk I count
eight songs and seven dances. Love was his undoing. The lady
he was engaged to failed him. His sorrow inspired him to
write the words and music of the beautiful ballad, "My dream
of love is o'er [over?]," and thereafter he lost interest in
all things, neglected his health, and speedily sank into a
decline. At his funeral were two bands, and the orchestra of
the Grand Theatre played as a funeral dirge that favorite
song of the dead and greatly regretted musician.
