Rev. Dr Richard Henebry and Francis O'Neill

The comparisons between Henebry and O’Neill are striking. Both are indebted to their mothers for their love of Irish music and culture, and both were musicians: O’Neill played the flute and Henebry played the fiddle.

They both came from relatively prosperous farming backgrounds, though in Henebry’s case that was to change during his youth. O’Neill and Henebry were products of an English language National School system in Ireland, introduced in 1832. Both excelled in school, and with his studious disposition, O’Neill seemed fated, for a time, to become a priest (9). Henebry, as noted, was an Irish language scholar, a fluent speaker and deeply committed to the Irish language, professionally and personally. Though O’Neill’s first language was English, he spoke and read some Irish and was a supporter of the efforts of the Gaelic League in its project of Irish language revival (Carolan, 1997: 7). In these regards, both men engaged comprehensively with the notion of a national identity underpinned by music practice and language.

Henebry and O’Neill met in Chicago in 1901 (O’Neill, 1913: 178) and Henebry considered himself fortunate to attend O’Neill’s home on the occasion of a meeting of the Irish Music Club (Fielding, 1934: 34). Henebry’s praise for the music he heard there was effusive and he took the opportunity to express his admiration for O’Neill’s work. At one music making session during his visit ‘a slashing reel, “The Bank of Ireland” caught his Reverence’s fancy. Seizing a violin he accompanied the piper with spirit’ (O’Neill, 1910: 49). Henebry later declared that O’Neill, through his tune collecting and publishing, ‘has rendered services of incalculable value to the cause of Irish nationhood’ (ibid.). O’Neill’s first collection (1903) while widely popular, was the subject of some unfavourable reviews, both in Ireland and the US, and this was in large part due to enmity between Henebry and some of the reviewers, and had little to do with the collection itself (see Carolan, 45-46). Henebry admired O’Neill greatly, and was a champion of his musicianship, declaring his rendition of ‘The Foxchase’ as unparalleled (Carolan, 29, quoting Séamus Ó Casaide). O’Neill, for his part, admired Henebry’s facility with language; in 1910 he wrote that he could not attempt to replicate what ‘the Rev. Dr. Henebry in later years endeavored to describe with his comprehensive vocabulary’ (O’Neill, 1910: 30).