The Learys of Benwilt - Part III
This is the final instalment in a three-part series by Jonathan Smith that recalls a famous fiddle player.
The Irish in Australia mourned when the Irish piper John Coughlan died leaving no one to replace him. That said, Patrick O’Leary ‘the progressive’ looked in to ‘introducing the war pipes’, or indeed a later type of pipe, the ‘Brian Boru pipes’. They formed a group and appealed through the papers for donations from enthusiastic music lovers to train up ‘nine young men’ and there was said to be no shortage of interest in the plan. The group’s honourable secretary was O’Leary’s son, Eugene.
With an ear for a good tune, O’Leary had learned of an elderly piper named Kelly, a man who travelled the country, and like a beagle on the scent of its prey, he made a valiant attempt to track down the musician in the hope of buying his much coveted war pipes. Sadly, O’Leary’s attempts were all in vain, and he concluded that he would never find them. But fortune was on his side, and during a meeting of the musicians, an old man wandered in off the street, making a beeline for Patrick. The stranger announced: ‘What have I in the bag, eh? Wisha sure, tis only an ould set of union pipes.’
Patrick helped take the pipes from the bag. Francis O’Neill, wrote of O’Leary’s ‘questioner promptly dragging forth the ancient instrument, the tones of which had haunted him since boyhood days’.
The old man cheerfully sold O’Leary the pipes, having explained, ‘och sure they’re no good to me. I got them from poor ould Kelly before he died but I can’t play them at all’. Patrick’s pocket was ten shillings lighter for the pleasure of acquiring the ‘long sought treasure’, having indeed searched Australia for a period of 20 years for them. O’Leary learnt that the pipes were in total disarray without the reeds, but luckily, a few years later an Englishman, a Northumbrian piper, repaired them. Patrick soon found an Irish piper called Critchley and invited him to Adelaide.
On the piper’s arrival, O’Leary excitedly exclaimed: ‘I will now try and explain to you my thoughts, feelings, and emotions on hearing and seeing the Union pipes played after a lapse of 41 years - from 1869 to 1910. As the time for the piper’s arrival drew near, I sauntered to the railway depot to meet him, and as I trudged along, Keegan’s beautiful lines, One winter’s day, long, long ago when I was a little fellow, a piper wandered to our door grey-headed, blind and yellow, occurred to my memory, and I mentally recited the verses until I arrived at the depot where I discovered “the piper” awaiting me.’
Not having seen the pipes played since his boyhood at Benwilt, it must have been a sight to see his excitement.
E.T. O’Hanlon
At the Town Hall, Cavan, in January 1915 a testimonial in the form of an illuminated scroll was presented to E.T. O’Hanlon, editor of The Anglo-Celt from ‘the faithful readers of the Celt’ and among the letters of congratulations received was one from Patrick O’Leary in Australia. Patrick wrote to the committee: ‘Gentlemen, I received your communication on the proposed testimonial to Mr E.T. O’Hanlon, Editor, Anglo-Celt, for which I thank you for giving a Celt beyond the seas an opportunity of contributing to such a deserving object… It is unnecessary for me to remark that Mr O’Hanlon is a truly remarkable man, and one that Cavan has good reason to be proud of.’
Patrick O’Leary died on August 16, 1925, and Senator O’Loghlin in his tribute stated: ‘His kind and genial disposition endeared him to all who had the privilege of his acquaintance. Australia loses a worthy citizen and Ireland a devoted son. May he rest in peace.’
What about Patrick’s relatives in Cootehill? Earlier, in 1918, O’Leary in a letter to Hugh O’Reilly wistfully lamented: ‘I’ve no letters from the Dairy Brae for nearly two years. I don’t know what’s the matter. Things are very mixed up in Ireland at the present.’
Banshees
From times long ago, the Leary family were known to have their own banshee whose appearance was recorded numerous times. In the small hours of the morning of January 3, 1980, my parents were woken by the sounds of a child humming dolefully. At first, they suspected it might have been me and came into my bedroom only to find me asleep.
Through the night the whining sound continued. Around dinnertime on the following day a neighbour who looked like he’d seen a ghost called. He had been out searching fields around Benwilt for Paddy Leary who went missing the night before. Paddy, who was in his 80s, died that night, and his remains were carried from the field that morning.
The Learys talked of hearing a ghostlike singing child before a relative’s death. Having witnessed this on another occasion many years before, the family then heard of a death in Australia, possibly that of the great fiddle player, their uncle Patrick O’Leary. The parallels of the spirit’s description in both accounts were uncanny and give credence to the story of the family banshee.
Tommy Leary, like his Australian uncle, was a gifted musician and storyteller, but for his own reasons had resigned the fiddle to its resting place on the wall above the fireplace when his brother John died. Tommy himself lived to the grand old age of 97 years in the care of his good neighbours Peggy and Jim McGahan.
In the 1990s he had a new lease of life when his cataracts were removed, and I remember his name appearing as the winner of the weekly crossword in the Celt two years before his death on March 21, 1999. He was the last generation to have lived in Benwilt where their family’s love of music, song and storytelling had all begun.
Today, the old homestead on the Dairy Brae is empty, its walls reclaimed by nature, where the ghost stories, music, and tales of fairies are but echoes of happier days.
part one