Music in the Autobiographies: An Index

Abstract

In a 1960 letter to Elie Siegmeister, the American composer who, with lyricist Ed Mabley, was working on an operatic version of The Plough and the Stars, O’Casey commented, “I know nothing about music bar the enjoyment much of it gives me.”¹ Only a few years earlier, however, O’Casey included this passage in Inishfallen, Fare Thee Well:

… Here’s the key of the Throne Room, and this one’s the key of St. Patrick’s Hall, my good man. A long, long trail from Fitzhenry to Fitzalan, Alpha and Omega. Goodbye, all. Farewell, but whenever I welcome the hour of the flight of the Earl, I feel kind of sad. The last glimpse of Erin with sorrow I see, regretting the time I’ve lost in wooing; ‘tis gone, and for ever the time when first I met thee, warm and young, a bright May moon was shining, love; but the dream of those days when first I sung thee is o’er; ‘tis gone, and for ever, the light we saw breaking, and no longer can you come to rest in this bosom, my own stricken dear; so, farewell, and go where glory waits thee, where the harp that once can function again, and the minstrel boy will be your well-known warrior.²