The Learys of Benwilt - Part II

This is the second in a three-part column by Jonathan Smyth, which later recalls a famous fiddle player...

Tommy and Ownie Leary played in a band; Tommy on the fiddle and Ownie the accordion. They were a family with a longstanding love of Irish music. When their brother John died, Tommy ceased to strike a tune on the old fiddle and hung it above the fireplace never to be played again. It was once asked of him why he no longer played the instrument and he evasively replied: ‘The thorns, the thorns. Farming and Fiddling don’t go together.’ Little did I know that Tommy had a musical uncle in Australia who was a master fiddle player.

To my great surprise I learned that an uncle of Tommy and his siblings, also born at Benwilt, Dairy Brae, was a musician of great fame, although he preferred to call himself O’Leary rather than Leary. Patrick O’Leary was a brother of Tommy’s father, and he wrote songs which were recorded on phonograph, and in equal measure he produced poems and stories, a talent he passed on to his own children. O’Leary’s life was lived in Australia from where he wrote letters, and stories which appeared in The Anglo-Celt, all ‘in the interest of the Gaelic Revival.’

Patrick O’Leary was born at Benwilt, Dairy Brae, on 25 March 1851, the youngest of a family of seven sons and five daughters. A John Leary can be found at the same address in Griffith’s valuation for the 1850s and at this point I engaged help from the expert researchers at Cavan Genealogy Centre who were able to identify Patrick’s parents as John Leary, and Sally Leary née Hughes of Benwilt. Patrick’s siblings which could be identified in baptism records included Peggy (born in 1833), Thomas (1835), John (1837), Michael (1839), Owen (1846), and Patrick (1851). One of Patrick’s sisters married and became a Mrs. Kelsey and lived with her brother Owen in Chicago. Patrick also spent a couple of years living in the United States too.

In 1870, Patrick emigrated to Australia, following in the footsteps of his two brothers Michael and John. However, in 1874 he returned to Cootehill shortly before his father’s death and was able to attend the funeral duties. He went back to Australia in 1876 where he developed an avid interest in Catholic and Irish matters, especially Irish music. He lived in the parish of Parkside, Adelaide, and was instrumental in founding St Rafael’s Society, and represented it in the union parliament for some years having become its first vice president. Patrick was married to Elizabeth O’Brien, and they lived at 10 John Street, Eastwood, Adelaide. Their children included sons Gerald, and Eugene, and sisters, the Misses Wadie Leary and Ellie Leary.

Patrick was patron of the Irish Piper’s Band, ‘founded at his instigation’ and played a large role in the success of an Irish Feís held in Adelaide and it was said that every organisation with an Irish national interest, he joined, from the Irish National League, to the Irish National Federation and the United League of which he was vice president. When the Irish Piper’s Band was formed, O’Leary wrote an article under the pseudonym of ‘Benwilt’ for the Southern Cross on June 3, 1910, telling readers: ‘The principal object of the Irish Piper’s Band is to foster and encourage’ a love of Irish music amongst the ‘scattered Gaels’ in Australia.

When visiting his brother Owen, and sister Mrs Kelsey in Chicago, Patrick O’Leary met Francis O’Neill author of ‘Irish Minstrels and Musicians.’ The book contains information on Patrick O’Leary. O’Neill said of Patrick: ‘Phonographs of Mr O’Leary’s fiddle playing, which we enjoyed at the home of his brother Owen and Mrs Kelsey in Chicago justify any eulogy which our words could express.’

The ‘Miss Rochelle Rudolph’s Hornpipe’, composed by Patrick in celebration of his grandniece’s visit from America was published in ‘Waifs and Strays of Gaelic Melody,’ 1922. Patrick’s day job was at the then named ‘Mental Hospital’, Parkside, Adelaide, where his sincerity, hard work and dedication saw him rise to head attendant.

He kept in touch with home, and his stories, letters and songs often appeared in the Anglo-Celt. Two stories I enjoyed by O’Leary were the ‘Wizard and the Devil: a story of the Dairy Bush, Cootehill, otherwise, a legend of the Dairy Brae’, and secondly, his ‘A Woman’s Hate: a tale of Annaghlee House,’ which are both based on true stories. Patrick took an interest in local history as well, and in 1910 his letter to The Anglo-Celt on the brothers Bernard and Ross McMahon - Archbishops, is fascinating. He wrote: ‘in your issue of February 13th a correspondent under the nom de plume of ‘Monaghan Road’ asks on what authority does Patrick O’Leary, Adelaide, South Australia, late of Dairy Brae, “base” his statement, that the brothers Ross and Bernard McMahon lived on a hillside close to the Monaghan Road Station?’ Patrick continues, ‘first, I heard the statement from the lips of my revered father, God rest him, the late John Leary, or more correctly, O’Leary, Dairy Brae, Cootehill. His authority on this and many other equally interesting historical subjects’ was well known, and he was ‘also highly esteemed and respected and acknowledged by all who were competent to give an opinion on such matters.’

John Leary’s informant on the McMahon’s home was John Boyle a blacksmith from Cootehill, known as Jacky Boyle, born in 1770, which would have made him known to many of Ross and Bernard McMahon’s contemporaries. Patrick’s second source was the ‘Monaghan Advocate’ of the winter of 1875 to 1876 which had a series of articles on the McMahons of Monaghan.

Patrick O’Leary, according to Francis O’Neill was ‘endowed with an attractive personality’ whose gift lay in music while his writings ‘proclaimed’ him to be ‘a writer of no ordinary ability.’ O’Leary’s children too, were of strong musical ability and on St Patrick’s night 1905 he and his son Eugene appeared on stage at the city Hall, Adelaide. Patrick played the fiddle and Eugene the piano.

To be continued after Christmas …

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The Learys of Benwilt - Part I