This important collection of wax cylinders derives from a friendship between the extraordinary Captain Francis O’Neill (1848-1936), Cork-born Chief of Police in Chicago, and the Reverend Richard Henebry (1863-1916), Professor of Irish at UCC from 1909 until his death in 1916. The collection is comprised of 114 cylinders, the majority of which Henebry recorded in the Déise region of his home county of Waterford. In addition, the collection includes a set of cylinders, American in origin, recorded by Captain Francis O’Neill in Chicago prior to 1905. The cylinders recorded by O’Neill, and sent by him to Professor Henebry as a gift, consist of recordings of some of the best-known Chicago-Irish musicians of the day, including the pipers Patsy Touhey and James Early and the fiddle player James McFadden.