The comparisons between Henebry and O\u2019Neill are striking. Both are indebted to their mothers for their love of Irish music and culture, and both were musicians: O\u2019Neill played the flute and Henebry played the fiddle. <\/p>\n
They both came from relatively prosperous farming backgrounds, though in Henebry\u2019s case that was to change during his youth. O\u2019Neill 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\u2019Neill 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\u2019Neill\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n
Henebry and O\u2019Neill met in Chicago in 1901 (O\u2019Neill, 1913: 178) and Henebry considered himself fortunate to attend O\u2019Neill\u2019s home on the occasion of a meeting of the Irish Music Club (Fielding, 1934: 34). Henebry\u2019s praise for the music he heard there was effusive and he took the opportunity to express his admiration for O\u2019Neill\u2019s work. At one music making session during his visit \u2018a slashing reel, \u201cThe Bank of Ireland\u201d caught his Reverence\u2019s fancy. Seizing a violin he accompanied the piper with spirit\u2019 (O\u2019Neill, 1910: 49). Henebry later declared that O\u2019Neill, through his tune collecting and publishing, \u2018has rendered services of incalculable value to the cause of Irish nationhood\u2019 (ibid.). O\u2019Neill\u2019s 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\u2019Neill greatly, and was a champion of his musicianship, declaring his rendition of \u2018The Foxchase\u2019 as unparalleled (Carolan, 29, quoting S\u00e9amus \u00d3 Casaide). O\u2019Neill, for his part, admired Henebry\u2019s facility with language; in 1910 he wrote that he could not attempt to replicate what \u2018the Rev. Dr. Henebry in later years endeavored to describe with his comprehensive vocabulary\u2019 (O\u2019Neill, 1910: 30).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The comparisons between Henebry and O\u2019Neill are striking. Both are indebted to their mothers for their love of Irish music and culture, and both were musicians: O\u2019Neill played the flute and Henebry played the fiddle. They both came from relatively prosperous farming backgrounds, though in Henebry\u2019s case that was to change during his youth. O\u2019Neill […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":8,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epu.ucc.ie\/henebry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/135"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epu.ucc.ie\/henebry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epu.ucc.ie\/henebry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epu.ucc.ie\/henebry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epu.ucc.ie\/henebry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/epu.ucc.ie\/henebry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":337,"href":"https:\/\/epu.ucc.ie\/henebry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/135\/revisions\/337"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epu.ucc.ie\/henebry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epu.ucc.ie\/henebry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}