James Kearney is an enigma of 19th century Dublin singing and songwriting, described variously as ‘a tinker from Clare’ and ‘a labourer from Limerick’. Songs attributed to him include ‘Courtin’ in the Kitchen’, ‘Paudeen Rhu, or A Tinker’s Travels’ (his signature song) and ‘Saint Kevin and King O’Toole’, although DJ O’Donoghue credits this last song to Tom Shalvey, ‘a market-gardener… who wrote some amusing poems for Kearney.’ Perhaps we can be sure of one song, which contains the lines:
“Straight from Limerick town I came
And, faix, my name is Jamesey Kearney.”
The Dublin Night Policeman, Free and Easy Songbook, Nugent, Dublin, n.d. p. 3 (consulted at the ITMA, Dublin)
Ballad collector PJ McCall (1861-1919) tells us that Kearney had a tin shop on Walker’s Alley, one of a network of tenement lanes on the north side of St Patrick’s Cathedral that was cleared around 1900 to make way for St Patrick’s Park. McCall writes that Kearney’s patter and singing as he mended pots attracted a crowd and led to his stage success.
“One evening, Lemass, a Music Hall proprietor in the city, paid a furtive visit to the alley and mingled with the audience. The result was that Kearney was engaged to sing at his Music Hall on Inn’s Quay.”
Patrick Joseph McCall, ‘Zozimus’, Dublin Historical Record, 7.4 (1945), 134–49 (p. 145).
McCall maintained that Kearney did not write any songs, ‘for he was hopelessly illiterate’1, although this may be a misunderstanding of the difference between composition and literacy: many blind and unlettered poets and balladeers, including Zozimus (Michael Moran, c1794-1846) and Joseph Sadler (c1820-1870) of Dublin, dictated their verses to printers. In a paper given in 1893 and published in 1894, McCall says Kearney settled in Walker’s Alley ‘about 50 years since’, ie, around 1843, and that he died ‘about twelve years ago’, that is, c1881.
I have not established when and where Kearney was born or when exactly he died. Very little study has been done on his work since Alf Mac Lochlainn examined “Popular Speech in the Songs of James Kearney, c.1840” (University Review, Vol. 2, No. 8, Winter, 1961, Dublin, pp. 52-60). I have been gleaning details of Kearney’s songs from this study, and from several nineteenth-century songsters, along with the scrapbooks of McCall held at the Irish Traditional Music Archive. Details of Kearney’s life as a performer I am piecing together from newspaper ads and some reviews. These date from the 1850s and 60s, suggesting a later or at least a more persistent popularity than that cited by Mac Lochlainn.
Trawling through mid-nineteenth century newspaper archives for mentions of Kearney is an unrewarding business in the main, but my Find of the Month for September is one of those surprises that makes the slog worthwhile. In The Era, a Victorian newspaper which had short reviews of theatre and music-hall shows in all of the main cities of Britain and Ireland, I found a short write-up on a pantomime ‘from the pen of J. Kearney’. This review was published on the day of the Epiphany, January 6th 1861. Here it is, transcribed underneath for easier reading:
DUBLIN.—Four Courts Concert Hall,—(Proprietor, Mr. J. Lemass.)—The holiday folks have enjoyed at this establishment a new and comical Pantomime, from the pen of Mr. J. Kearney, entitled King of the Cannibal Islands; or, The Mendicant Fairy and the Enchanted Forest, which is well supported by the present company. Mr. W. Butler is an excellent Clown, creating laughter with his comicalities. Mr. Loosemore seems quite at home as Pantaloon, Mr. Hayes improves as Harlequin; and Madame Accrama is a pleasing Columbine. The proprietor has not spared expense; and praise is due to the stage manager, Mr. W. Butler, for its production. The vocal department is as strong and efficient as ever. The Butler Family and their champion dog, Nero, are still favourites.
The Era, January 6th 1861, p.13
The listed characters were the stock-in-trade of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British pantomime or Harlequinade, whose origins lay in the Italian Commedia dell’Arte. Pantaloon is the elderly father of Columbine, Clown is his servant, and Harlequin is the suitor of whom Pantaloon disapproves. As is still the case with pantomimes, the title is also a stock one, in this case named for a popular song of the time.
A newspaper advertisement from almost six years earlier puts Kearney singing in Prince Patrick’s Theatre on Fishamble Street on Monday 2nd April 1855, at a variety show for the benefit of S. Clarkson. It is clear from other adverts at the time that Clarkson was an actor at the theatre; ‘benefits’ were often given to a popular performer at the end of a run.
Five years later, in a magnificently bitchy and over-blown response to a query about this theatre, one critic said: “By your last number, I perceive a party complains I omit to notice the performance at some Dublin theatre. Your correspondent possibly alludes to an old fabric in the classic locality of Fishamble Street, to which, it would appear, the right to give dramatic representations still appertains. Until Prince Patrick’s, or the Lyceum, or whatever I am to call this house (as it changes its name as often as any pickpocket), falls into the hands of some one who will repair it, as the Scotchman did his fire-arm, when he gave it a new stock, lock, and barrel, the performance there will not be worth reporting.” (The Players, Saturday May 5th 1860, p.7)
From this imperious dismissal, it’s clear that Kearney worked in some of the least salubrious establishments of the city. The knowledge that he wrote, or at least cobbled together, a pantomime that was warmly received over Christmas 1860 and through January 1861 (a note in the same newspaper on Sunday January 27th states ‘the pantomime is still successful’) is one more intriguing detail about this elusive figure. I will be examining the songs attributed to Kearney to see if I can discover any that might fit into such a pantomime. For now, it’s enough to reflect that, as befits the best panto characters, James Kearney went from poor tenement worker to crowned king of Dublin, or at least, beloved figure of the city stage. OH YES HE DID!
1 Patrick Joseph McCall, ‘In the Shadow of St. Patrick’s’, Dublin Historical Review, 2.2 (1939), 73–80 (p. 9).