A VERY pleasant recital of the songs of Thomas Moore was held at Knockanure Community Centre on Saturday night. Organised by Jimmy Deenihan, TD, the audience, from all over north Kerry, was treated to all the great composer's favourite songs.
His greatest hits would include: Let Erin Remember; Love Thee Dearest; Oft in the Stilly Night; The Last Rose of Summer; The Minstrel Boy - and so many more.
A team of professional singers, which included: Michael Lang, tenor; Emer Barry and Maebh McMullan, sopranos; Clive Armstrong, pianist/accompanist and Catherine Eaton, narrator, brought the audience on a trip of realisation that recalled the genius that sprang from a man in its midst in nearby Moyvane.
It was a special evening for the relatively new centre which stands on the site of the old village national school. Performers and organisers later declared themselves very pleased with the acoustics of the building and promised that it bodes well for future musical events there.
It was an evening to remember too for a trio of talented, young Ballylongford women who were invited to the stage area to join the singers in the finale of the evening, The Minstrel Boy.
Emily Wren, Saoirse O'Connor and her sister Dearbhla belted out the song with the best of them and were loudly applauded by an audience which included family and friends.
Then tenor Michael Lang thanked the attendance and sent them home with an idea which just might run. He told the gathering that he was singing the songs of Thomas Moore since he was a boy and of his admiration for the Dublin born composer.
"I'm going to visit his grave in Wiltshire next year and see what I can do to have his remains returned to Ireland and reburied here in this locality."
Jimmy Deenihan gave the move a full if cautious backing. In the few minutes it took Michael Lang to divulge his ambition, the TD had already picked out a plot in nearby Ardavoher Cemetery for the big occasion.
Thomas Moore was born in Dublin on May 28, 1779. He was son of a Moyvane born father, John Moore and a Wexford woman, Anastasia Codd.
John Moore was, according to the programme notes by local poet, Dan Keane, a tradesman, grocer and spirit dealer.
Thomas Moore was buried in the grounds of the Church of St. Nicholas, Bromham, Wiltshire, England after his death on February 25 1852.
His actress wife, Elizabeth (Bessy) Dyke — a Londoner — who died in 1865, is also buried there with him.
Moore was a talented singer and musician with a natural ability as a lyric writer. In 1801 he published his first collection The Poetical Works of the Late Thomas Little but this failed to impress the critics. However, he soon began to set his rhymes to traditional Irish folk tunes and published them in Irish Melodies — which secured his financial position. He is credited with being one of the first to popularise Irish music abroad and The Last Rose of Summer sold over a million copies in America alone.
He was a close friend of Lord Byron and there is a great story of the two men discussing fame by the banks of the Thames. From the river came the sound of a boatman singing one of Moore's songs; at which point Byron remarked: "That, is fame."
- JOHN REIDY