Sisters of the Revolutionaries. Teresa O’Donnell

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to promote Irish by advocating that it should be taught in schools and spoken more frequently, but it was the League that would succeed in popularising the language and reviving various Gaelic practices. The final decades of the nineteenth century were marked by the formation of various cultural movements, such as the Gaelic Athletic Association (1884), the National Literary Society (1892), Feis Ceoil (1896) and the Irish Literary Theatre (1898). These movements were part of the reawakening of a national Irish consciousness and a renewal of national spirit, which it was hoped would result in increased cultural and material prosperity.

      The Pearse siblings participated in many contemporary cultural movements. They were, undoubtedly, influenced by Patrick’s cultural interests, which primarily centred around the promotion and development of the Irish language. The family’s participation in cultural movements was not unusual as many young people were involved in cultural and/or political activism during this period. As Mary Colum, the author and literary critic commented, young people had ‘a desire for self-sacrifice, a devotion to causes; everyone was working for a cause, for practically everything was a cause’.23

      Patrick was the first of the Pearse family to join the Gaelic League, in 1896, and was soon followed by Willie and Mary Brigid. From 1897 onwards, he became more prominent in the League and more vocal at branch meetings. He was an active contributor to the weekly bilingual newspaper Fáinne an Lae, and, in 1898, was co-opted on to the Executive Committee (Coiste Gnótha). In the spring of 1898, he sat the Matriculation and shortly after commenced studying for a Bachelor of Arts in French, English and Celtic (Irish) at the Royal University, and a Bachelor of Law at the King’s Inns and Trinity College, Dublin. Patrick’s participation in the activities of the Gaelic League often distracted him from his studies, but his commitment to the organisation resulted in his appointment as secretary of the Publications Committee from 1900 to 1903 and editor of its newspaper, An Claidheamh Soluis (The Sword of Light), in 1903.

      The burden of work often took its toll on Patrick but his family were at hand to support him, even to the point of ensuring that he was not late for giving lectures or attending Sunday morning mass. When the Pearse family lived in Sandymount, each of them took it in turn to call Patrick from 8.00am onwards for midday mass at St Andrew’s Church. Despite never leaving the house before 11.53am, when the train signals dropped, he never missed the train.24 Patrick’s tardiness, and apparently, chaotic life, intrigued his younger sister who wrote a humorous account of several memorable incidents.

      As the shrill whistle sounded, and the train steamed into the station, he would be seen sprinting up the platform, triumphant and breathless. Once or twice he just hung on, and was hauled into the guard’s van. The porters all got to know the eccentric gentleman who was always late, and would courteously keep a door open, and push his flying figure into the carriage in the nick of time.25

      She recalled sitting in lecture theatres waiting for Patrick to deliver a lecture knowing that he would probably arrive thirty minutes late for the lecture as he was invaribly fast asleep on the couch in the drawing room of their home.

      Willie’s association with the Gaelic League began in 1898. He spoke the language fluently and, in between studying, participating in student exhibitions and working, also taught an Irish language class at the Metropolitan School of Art. Mary Brigid’s connection with the League was through Patrick and her harp teacher, Owen Lloyd. Mary Brigid’s fascination with the harp began after she attended a concert featuring a pedal harpist at the Round Room of the Rotunda in Dublin. She expressed an interest in acquiring a harp, but following the closure of Francis Hewson’s Irish and pedal harp manufactory in York Street, Dublin, in 1872, it became increasingly difficult to source an instrument in Ireland. Nevertheless, knowing how enthusiastic she was about the instrument, Patrick eventually purchased a harp for her.

      The memory of getting her first harp remained with Mary Brigid for the rest of her life: ‘I still remember the intense rapture with which I at last held the long-wished-for treasure in my trembling arms. I just loved my harp; and I am proud to say that, despite many vicissitudes, the same precious little instrument can sing to-day as sweetly as it sang in those far-off happy days so long gone by!’26 Ruth Dudley Edwards described Patrick’s generosity as ‘a symptom of his engaging open-handedness and disregard for economic pressures’;27 perhaps it was merely Patrick fostering his sister’s talents again as he had done so often during her childhood.

      It is most likely that Mary Brigid was introduced to Owen Lloyd by Patrick. Lloyd was a renowned Irish, pedal and wire-strung harpist and Irish language activist, who, through his busy performing career and teaching duties, transformed the perception and repertoire of the Irish harp in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.28 The tradition of wire-strung Irish harp performance had been in decline for centuries, but inspired by the ideologies of various cultural movements of the late nineteenth century, Lloyd was determined to revive an interest in the performance and teaching of the modern Irish harp in Ireland and amongst the Irish disapora in England and Scotland. Both Patrick and Lloyd were prominent members of the Gaelic League and attended several League events together, including the Mayo Feis in April 1903, at which Lloyd performed to great acclaim. Under Lloyd’s guidance, Mary Brigid progressed quickly on the Irish and concert harps.

      Lloyd was a member of the committees of An tOireachtas, a major competitive festival organised by the Gaelic League, and Feis Ceoil, an association that promoted Irish music through concerts and annual competitions. Lloyd’s membership of these committees afforded opportunities for his most promising students to perform. Before 1898, branch meetings of the Gaelic League comprised a language class followed by a discussion or debate. The League made little progress in attracting new membership in its early years, having only forty-three branches in 1897. In November 1897, Patrick proposed at a branch meeting that weekly meetings could be made more appealing through a series of lectures and concerts under the auspices of the League. He also suggested that music, drama or dancing be used to attract new members. Gradually, the League restructured and branches (craobhacha) at regional and local level added musical performances, and lectures on Irish history, folklore and culture, to their existing language classes. Branch meetings, particularly in Dublin, began to conform to a practice of concluding with a performance of songs in Irish or with a short recital on the uilleann pipes or harp; Mary Brigid performed regularly at these branch meetings.

      In early 1900, Mary Brigid played at monthly meetings of the central branch in Dublin; many of these meetings were chaired by her brother Patrick. Committee members from the branch organised a scoraíocht (social evening), on 10 January, which featured Thomas Rowsome on pipes, pianists, dancers and singers. Mary Brigid performed a selection of harp pieces and sang ‘Bán Chnoic Éireann Ó’ to an enthusiastic audience of over a hundred people.29 The following month, at another branch meeting, she gave a short recital on the harp which included Thomas Moore’s ‘Has Sorrow Thy Young Days Shaded’ and ‘Garryowen with Variations’.30 Her repertoire, which included old harp tunes, song airs and early nineteenth-century compositions by Moore, reflected the varied nature of music performed on Irish harps in this period.

      Feiseanna (competitions), both regional and national, and aeríochtaí (concerts) were also an important means of attracting new membership to the League and were crucial media for the revival of various Gaelic practices, such as dancing, piping and Irish harp performance. Eighteen ninety-seven marked the inauguration of An tOireachtas, a new competition under the auspices of the Gaelic League. Lloyd performed regularly at concerts of An tOireachtas and was joined in 1898 by his band of harps, an ensemble consisting of three or four of his harp students who performed two-part arrangements of a repertoire including ‘Carolan’s Concerto’, ‘Dear Harp of my Country’ and ‘Return from Fingal’.31 In May 1900, Mary Brigid, Miss Butler, Nora Twemlow, Nora Collins and Lloyd played ‘Siúd Síos fa mo Dhídean’ and ‘An Filleadh ó Fhine Ghall’. The band of harps was a regular feature at concerts of An tOireachtas during the first decade of its existence.32

      Mary Brigid also won several prizes at harp competitions run by An tOireachtas. To acknowledge her success, Patrick

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