Desmond Moore

INTRODUCTION

To undertake a work is simple, to carry it through not necessarily so. Considerable time and effort went into quartering County Offaly in search of information regarding James Lynam Molloy and his family with little success. Facts were strangely elusive. Recourse had to be had, therefore, to a period not noted for its record-keeping efficiency. Into this twilight world Molloys came and went like flickering shadows, briefly glimpsed and sometimes lost again. Persistence, like patience, earns its own reward, however, and in this case it is hoped that it rescues the composer from undeserved obscurity.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In the preparation of this work many questions went, and had to remain, unanswered. But to the countless folk who patiently endured my enquiries or added to my knowledge I am profoundly grateful. They include Michael Byrne, M. Litt. and John Kearney of the Offaly Historical and Archaeological Society for their unfailing interest and encouragement. Brian Purdey of Hastings; Canon Anthony Griffiths, Marlow-on-Thames; Alan Guthrie, Henley-on-Thames; Dr. Terence McCaughey, Trinity College; Eamonn MacAodha, Irish Embassy in Rome; Deirdre O’Gorman, FAS Community Employment Programme at Offaly Historical and Archaeological Society; Mary O’Doherty, Archivist, Royal College of Surgeons; Monsignor Thomas Coonan, PP., V.G, Portlaoise; Dr. John Fleetwood; Patricia Lynch, Portlaoise Library; Mary McCaughey Marcoux, Brussels; Sister Oliver Wrafter, Rahan; Patrick F. Meehan, Portlaoise; Rev. Ian Dickie, Westminster Archives, London; Rev. Anthony Wilcox, Henley-on-Thames; Paschal Farrell, Essex; Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Powell, Clonbela; Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Payne, Clara; Mr. and Mrs. R. E. V. Goodbody, Clara; Tony Tinkel, Reading; the many clergymen who cheerfully ransacked parish registers on my behalf and finally and most emphatically my patient and supportive wife, Patricia.

The Cradle

Once in the dear, dead days beyond recall a son was born to Kedo John Molloy and his wife Maria Teresa. It is quite on the cards that the infant may have hummed in the course of baptism, but his parents had no reason to suppose that, one day, concert halls would ring to his music, and that his songs would still be sung a century and a half later.

If proof is needed of the contention that a prophet is never honoured in his own country, look no further than Ireland and County Offaly. “James Lynam Molloy? Ah yes,” they’ll tell you in Tullamore or Clara, “now that you mention it he wrote some songs and came from these parts.” With many that’s the sum total of their knowledge. Move outside the county boundary and the name Molloy will generate little more than a slack jaw and a vacant stare.

But try naming a song or two, and what a transformation!

'The Kerry Dance', ‘Love’s Old Sweet Song’, ‘Bantry Bay’ and ‘Thady O’Flynn’ are among those sent lilting down the years by this son of Offaly, part of whose youth was spent among the green pastures and murmuring streams of midland Ireland. Here where the Molloys had held sway for centuries and are still as numerous as shells on a seashore were sown the seeds of a rare talent that endowed the world of music with many unforgettable melodies.

The family from which he sprang was the senior branch of the O’Molloys, one-time princes of Fearceall, whose territory lay in the west of the county in the looming shadow of the Slieve Bloom. They were a warlike people, and surviving reminders of their turbulent past are the ruined castles of Broughal and Derrydolney, both within a few miles of Kilcormac. The Molloys are also remembered for the splendour of their hospitality. At Broughal Castle during the sixteenth century they entertained one thousand of their followers for Christmas.

But the immediate family of our Offaly composer is linked particularly with two other locations in the county - Clara and Rahan.

Meet Kedo John Molloy the first.

Kedo lived in Charlestown, a village then on the outskirts of Clara, described as consisting of about forty houses, and formerly the seat of an extensive linen trade. Clara, its lush pastoral surroundings merging into the uniformity of bogland, was considerably bigger, and at the time of the composer’s birth had a population of fourteen hundred, with no fewer than eleven distilleries, several flour mills, and soap and candle-making industries contributing to its prosperity.

One or more of these industries had contributed to the affluence of Kedo John Molloy the first, a man prosperous enough to endow the people of Clara with a Linen Exchange Hall. Nothing now remains of the building, not even, it seems, a memory of where it once stood.

If Kedo was comfortably off, the standing of his son and successor Bernard, suffered nothing in comparison. He was that rarity among his peers - a Catholic landowner in a society dominated by a Protestant ascendancy. He was quite a pillar of the community, and, not to be outdone by his predecessor, donated a wing to the old Catholic church of the town. The former church is now in use as a hall. It is a safe assumption that the Molloy family owed the bulk of its fortune to Bernard. Land records show that in addition to his interests in Clara he had substantial holdings elsewhere in the county. Some of these had formerly been held by the Armstrong family.

Scottish Invaders

In the tumultuous days when the Scots and English waged frequent war along their disputed border, the most noted contenders on the Scottish side were the Armstrongs. Their clan territory extended eastwards from the Solway Firth, and when not repelling attacks from neighbouring England they made daring raids into the enemy’s domain.

Among the most audacious of the Scottish raiders was Johnny Armstrong who with his marauding followers carried fire and sword into adjoining counties. Ranging the border area appropriately described as the “Debatable Lands”, he harassed all and sundry until King James V halted his gallop by having him hanged at Teviothead.

First of his descendants to appear in Offaly, and possibly in Ireland, was Thomas Armstrong who in 1652 was among the few released from the Tower of London following the Battle of Worcester. For him the change of scene was a successful one. He became a distinguished townsman of Banagher and subsequently its Mayor. The Armstrongs encouraged their relatives to join them, multiplied, and properties bearing their name became numerous in the county.

Among those were Bleachfield on the River Brosna near Lismoyny; Mount Armstrong in the parish of Rahan; Ballycumber House in the town of that name; Castle Armstrong in the same vicinity, and Gallen near Ferbane. At least one of these properties, Mount Armstrong, was acquired by the Molloy family as the Tithe Applotment Book for Offaly bears witness. The likelihood of their one-time ownership of Castle Armstrong, originally the home of Bagot Armstrong, rests on an entry in ‘Landowners of Ireland in 1876’ to effect that 521 acres of that estate were owned by “Reps. of James Molloy,” while 523 acres were similarly credited to Bernard.

Significantly, later-day references show it to have been occupied by Thomas Hackett, steward to the absentee Molloys. Both of the original residences have been demolished.

The holdings of the Molloy family must not be confused with those of Clonbela, Strawberry Hill, Bellair and other Molloys who may or may not have been relations. They were, however, extensive. At Ballycumber, for instance, they owned the bleachgreen houses and machinery. Kedo the first bequeathed to his son, Bernard, an interest in the lands known as Cappervale, Knowas, and Charlestown. And when Bernard died in 1835 his property included a house in Clara’s Main Street, a second in Church Street, the lands of Curragh and Cappadonnell and .... “my dwelling house and lands of Kilcoursey.”

But their principal and longest-held property was that of Cornalaur - a townland within the parish of Rahan, and one which they owned virtually lock, stock, and barrel.

It was fortunate for his family that Bernard died a wealthy man, for in addition to his widow he left behind a total of eleven children. By the terms of his will (and subject to his wife’s portion) the lands of Cornalaur were to devolve on his various offspring “share and share alike” as he himself expressed it. At this juncture his youngest son was twenty-six years of age. He was named after an uncle, Kedo John the second.

Footprints in Dublin

This particular Kedo practised as a doctor and surgeon. As early as 1833 he was living in Dublin’s French Street - the name of which thoroughfare was later changed to Mercer Street Upper because of its unsavoury reputation. He was married to Maria Teresa Lynam, daughter of James Lynam of 5 Newington Terrace, Rathmines, Dublin, the marriage being solemnised at the church of Our Lady of Refuge in that parish in June, 1833. Rather unusually, the witnesses to the ceremony were the fathers of the bride and bridegroom.

At this period Rathmines was only beginning to lose its village-like character. Its residents had known it as a small settlement grouped around the present road juncture in the centre of Rathmines. Whitewashed cottages, a common, and the chattering Swan River, later banished underground, constituted a rural setting resorted to by ailing Dubliners for a change of air. Only a decade before, the site of Newington Terrace had been marked by a hedge and unsightly ditches, while midway stood a sentry-box sheltering an elderly night watchman whose crooked staff was the sole deterrent to thieves and footpads.

The earliest Dublin street directories, as distinct from lists o citizens preceding them, were published from 1834. First to carry the name and address of Dr. Kedo was that of 1838 when he was practising his profession at 199 Great Brusnwick Street and resident at the Rathmines home of Maria’s parents. The Brunswick (now Pearse) Street address was also that of surgeon William Wills Wilde, father of Oscar Wilde.

For the following two years, Dr. Kedo is still listed at Brunswick Street, but living at the more remote location of Williamstown. By 1841 his name disappears from the directory. Maria’s father died in 1848, his widow’s name replacing his in the directory for a single year.

The sequence of events leading to the birth of the future composer are relatively clear. Kedo John the 24-year-old medical man living in French Street and probably attached to nearby Mercer’s Hospital meets Maria Teresa Lynam. They fall in love and decide on marriage. Maria’s father consents and promises a generous dowry for his daughter. Being a cautious man, however, he looks for a quid pro quo, and in this same year Kedo provides it. He assigns his share of the rents arising from the lands of Cornalaur to his father-in-law in trust for Maria - a step later resulting in a court action in the interest of his bride.

Not too surprisingly in view of the number of participants involved, a lapse of two years occurred without Kedo receiving any share in the spoils.

A Bill was duly filed in the Court of Chancery seeking to have a receiver appointed and the arrears raised by the sale of land. The plea stressed the fact that Lynam had promised a generous marriage settlement on his daughter on the strength of Kedo’s anticipated inheritance.

From that time forward the rents in question were the responsibility of the Lynams and two trustees. It was only on the deaths of these and their successors that control passed in 1857 into the hands of Maria herself.9a

With some members of the two families at cross purposes, life for young Dr. Kedo must have been unenviable. How alientated he became from his own family is open to speculation, but almost five years after his marriage the sponsors at the baptism of his second son were given as Patrick Joseph Meehan and Mary “Lynham”.

False trail

The remaining years of Kedo’s life might remain a closed book were it not for a passing reference to him in the King’s County Chronicle over fifty years later. It was a misleading report in that it identified his wife’s family with Hawke House, Sunbury-on-Thames, and gave a date four years out for Kedo’s death. Jersey records reveal that Dr. Kedo died on that island four years earlier than stated in the Chronicle. He died in 1842, cause of death was nephritis, and the informant was Margaret “Lyndham” of Colomberie.

Colomberie is a thoroughfare in St. Helier, and Lyndham it may reasonably be assumed is a clerical error for Lynam. A sister-in-law?

The doctor was a mere thirty-three years of age when his life ended. No account of that event or of his funeral has surfaced so far from printed sources, but somewhere in a nineteenth century churchyard must be a forgotten, lichened tombstone bearing the name Kedo John Molloy.

The obscurity attached to the unnoticed passing of Kedo John the third clings to the family history from that date forward. As an outcome of the Chronicle’s misleading reference, his young widow and children are credited in later-day accounts as living in the noteworthy residence of Hawke House in Sunbury-on-Thames. This house, now the subject of a preservation order, was built by the celebrated Admiral Edward Hawke, who, in Quiberon Bay in 1759, destroyed a French fleet intended for the invasion of England. The house has known a variety of owners over its long existence, but neither a Lynam nor a Molloy owned or occupied it in the relevant period)

On the other hand Bernard, the younger of the two surviving Sons of Kedo and Maria, lived there from 1872 to 1874 - a fact that probably gave rise to the mistaken impression of Molloy family ownership. At this stage Bernard was in his thirties and an up-and-coming public figure. He may have done nothing to disabuse popular acceptance that the impressive house was a family property.

The Lynams, whatever the reasons, appear to have been more closely associated with the young married couple Kedo and Maria than were the Molloys of County Offaly. It might be expected, therefore, that the first child of the union may have been born at Rathmines and baptised in the church of Our Lady of Refuge. No such baptism was registered there. Similarly, no record exists of a baptism at Williamstown.

What evidence exists in relation to the place and time of the birth of James Lynam Molloy?

Mystery upon Mystery

The one positive indication of place is the entry governing his admittance to the Catholic University in Dublin. There it states that he would be nineteen on his next birthday, and that he had been born in Dublin. Presumably this information must either have been supplied by Molloy himself or by someone on his behalf. Nevertheless it has been widely accepted that he was born at Cornalaur. A search of County Offaly baptismal records fails to confirm this belief.

The civil registration of births, deaths and marriages only commenced in Ireland in 1864. Before that the sole source of information was that of church registers. If Molloy was born in Dublin a record of his baptism should exist in one of the church registers in force at the time. A trawl of all thirteen registers applicable fails to shed light on the event. Adding to the difficulty of establishing the place of his birth are conflicting reports of the time of the event.

All sources agree on the year 1837. His publishers, Boosey and Hawkes state August 15th in that year, while British Musical Biography plumps for August 19th, and that eminent source of information the Dictionay of National Biography agrees to this. Understandably subsequent references chorus these findings. It seems a pity to throw a spanner into such concord, but the registry of the church of St. Andrew in Dublin’s Westland Row (the church nearest to Dr. Kedo’s Brunswick Street address) records the fact that Bernard, son of Kedo John and Maria Teresa, was born on February 27, 1838 - a gap of only six months after the alleged birth date of his elder brother.

It would be thought that the last word on the subject might lie within the church where the composer worshipped and was buried. His tombstone in the churchyard of St. Peter’s Catholic church, Marlow, Buckinghamshire clearly states that he died on February 4th, 1909, aged 71. The year of birth, therefore, would have been 1838.

In Offaly, popular report favours Cornalaur as the composer’s birth place, and a modest cottage on the banks of the Grand Canal is pointed out as where the event took place. The Molloys owned several small properties along the waterway, some occupied by relatives and namesakes, but none really qualify as the home of a well-to-do landowner and the birth-place of his son. This leaves Mount Armstrong - with no parish baptismal record to support it - and Clara, where baptismal registration dates from only 1845.

For lack of confirmatory evidence, therefore, the time and place of James Lynam Molloy’s birth remains a mystery, with Clara offering a possible solution in the days when its baptismal records were non-existent.

The troubled land

How stood Ireland then?

A mere slip of an eighteen-year-old girl had ascended the British throne, and the Victorian era was under way. Catholic Emancipation had at last become a fact, and its architect Daniel O’Connell hugged a dream. Encouraged by the successful championship of his co-religionists, he now harboured the ambition of restoring Ireland’s sovereignty. ‘Repeal the Unions was the catch-phrase of the day. Wielding the same instrument of persuasion that had so recently proved effective he attracted countless thousands to the Repeal banner. Monster meetings pledged support - one at Tara alone mustering supposedly half a million people.

Ireland was alight with enthusiasm to break the tie with her powerful neighbour, but her fervour woke no response from the rulers at Westminster. Any crack in the fabric of the Empire was to be deplored. One so near home was anathema.

Averse to violence as a means towards an end, O’Connell found himself at an impasse. Time dragged on, enthusiasm abated, and with its leader becoming weakened in health, the movement faltered and died. Out of its ashes arose the Young Ireland Party, a combination of younger men motivated by romantic nationalism - some of whom favoured the path of armed struggle. They lacked the organisation and level-headed leadership necessary for success, however, and after a single abortive attempt at revolt their activities ended.

But discontent simmered on.

People of the Protestant ascendancy still held most of the worthwhile jobs and owned five-sixth of the land. This in spite of Catholics outnumbering them by ten times over. Before long the potato famine with its dread companions of fever and emigration would despoil the country of quarter of its population. It was against this backdrop that Dr. Kedo’s young widow faced the future and what it might hold for her children.

Boyhood Years

There were four of her marriage to Kedo John. The eldest, Mary Josephine, was noted for her beauty and intelligence and married Judge William Coghlan. They emigrated to Bengal, and when last heard of were living at Allahabad. A son, William, died at the age of nine. Her other two sons were James Lynam and Bernard Charles. This is the most obscure period in the family’s history, but the likelihood is that Maria and her sons divided their time between the fraternal grandmother and uncles at Clara and Maria’s one-time home in Rathmines.

For the first few years the brothers will have led the simple, carefree lives of most Irish boys of the time, probably attending a local Clara school, ranging the unspoiled country on their doorstep, and developing the sporting skills leading to the athleticism for which in later life they became noted.

Clara was thriving. The newly constructed Grand Canal had already passed through Cornalaur on its way to Shannon Harbour, and was an exciting source of interest to young and old alike.

Its fly-boats, particularly, lent colour and animation to the rural scene. Drawn on the tow-paths adjoining the waterway by three or four horses they achieved a speed of ten miles an hour, with postillions picturesquely garbed in blue frock-coats and scarlet waistcoats. Their cabins were comfortably upholstered and had flat roofs fitted with seats and awnings for use in fine weather. To many they offered an attractive alternative to the cramped conditions of vehicles plying the stifling dust of ill-kept highways.

Oldest Catholic School

At a stage where it was felt the Molloy brothers could weather another break in family life without disadvantage they were sent to boarding school. Whatever the altered circumstances following their father’s death, it is evident there was no shortage of money for their education. It was also certain that the children of the short-lived Molloy-Lynam marriage were to be well grounded in the religion so long adhered to by their forebears. Both families were devout Catholics, and in due course the boys were entrusted to that English bastion of the faith, St. Edmund’s College at Ware in Hertfordshire.

Somewhat ironically the establishment had its origins in the penal enactments of Elizabethan times when, as a safety measure, Catholic parents sent their sons abroad for education. This applied particularly to those destined for the priesthood, many of whom studied at Douai College in France, but were subsequently driven out by the French Revolution.

In the interval, English law had lost some of its harshness, and the manor house of Ware had been secretly bought to serve as a fee-paying school for the Sons of Catholics. The purchaser was James Talbot, Coadjutor Bishop, and brother of the Earl of Shrewsbury. A courageous churchman who had somehow survived the prejudices of the period, he was the last priest to be tried in England for saying Mass and for officiating as a bishop. The Douai students were transferred to the newly-founded college, and after their arrival the combined establishment was named St. Edmund’s in honour of an exiled Archbishop of Canterbury of the thirteenth.

The school that bears his name is the oldest Catholic school in England. Its chapel, opened in 1853, is the handiwork of the architect of that sonorous-sounding name, Augustus Welby Northcote Pugin. Pugin, a convert to Catholicism, was no stranger to the church builders of nineteenth century Dublin.

Not all was fair sailing for the evolving establishment. Problems arose on the heels of time, not the least being the mixture of students attracted. Scions of the aristocracy and the Sons of wealthy laymen studied cheek by jowl with aspiring churchmen. The fleshpots of London were a mere eighteen miles away and no strangers to the wilder spirits among the scholars. It was decided to separate the theological students from others, and in 1869 they were removed to Hammersmith.

College Days

It would be a little much to expect the full College records of 150 years ago to have survived intact. Nothing is available on the Molloys’ scholastic achievements. The school accounts ledger, however, turns back the years to give fascinating, sometimes amusing, glimpses of life and costs in a nineteenth century boarding school. In the case of the Molloy brothers one surmises a trust in the background. Payments on their behalf were made through the London financial house of Coutts.

The annual fee was eighty guineas paid half-yearly in advance, and other charges were scrupulously itemised. What guardian however punctilious could, for instance, ask for a more precise recital than that for the first half of 1850? “Entrance fee £3”, it opens. Haircut 2/-; Stationery 8/-; Pocket money 15/-; Doctor £1:1:0; Drawers 2/-.”

Like boys the world over the Molloy brothers were adept at the destruction of clothes and footwear. Caps had to be replaced at regular intervals, and charges such as “Repair to clothes 22/4”; “Two pairs of new shoes 38/3”; and “Extra charge for bedding and washing”; were not infrequent. Holiday periods were heralded by such entries as “Cash going home 24/6”, and the drinking customs of the time were indicated in “Bill for ale and stout 22/6”.

It was in 1851 that the first sign of James’s future talent evidenced itself in such tell-tale entries as . . . “tuition fees for music and drawing £4: 14:6”, and the notation “Use of piano 10/6”.

Ensuring that the Molloy brothers got a sound Catholic education was hardly a logical reason for the choice of an English school. Clongowes Wood had been in operation at this time for over thirty years, and Castleknock College was opened in 1835. It is much more likely that St. Edmund’s was favoured because of the presence on its teaching staff of an Irish relation or friend. Lending some colour to this theory is the observation against the name of James Lynam Molloy when in the next major step in his education he was enrolled as a student of the Catholic University of Ireland. “From Mr. Flannery’s House,” it was stated on his entrance form. The “House”, wasn’t, of course, a private one, but the student division in St. Edmund’s from which he came, and Mr. Flannery was the House Master.

Molloy’s admission to the University is dated June 4th, 1855, a few months after its opening at 86 Saint Stephen’s Green, Dublin. He would have been among the worshippers at the consecration of the adjoining church of Our Lady of Wisdom (now popularly known as University Church) ten months later. Predictably the records of the time are limited, but it is known that he won a junior classical scholarship in his first year and graduated in Arts in 1858.

At this stage there was no particular reason for singling Molloy out for comment. Solitary exception, perhaps, is the evidence of a contemporary that the future composer had a fine singing voice that attracted much attention.

Even by 1858 prejudice had far from fully died in the corridors of power, and the MA. degree of the Catholic University was not legally recognised. Molloy continued his studies in London, Paris and Bonn, and was called to the Bar in 1863, but never took up the practice of Law. If this suggests that he was a dilettante, nothing could be further from the truth. He had taken his examinations like a champion Irish hurdler and was to prove his ability to hold down a job of some importance. He became secretary to the British Attorney-General, Sir John Holker, to whose wife one of his early songs “Colinette” was dedicated.

It soon became clear, however, that the niceties of officialdom held no lasting attraction for the young man from County Offaly. Within a couple of years of his appointment he had written and published several songs and had tried his hands at an operetta, ‘The Student’s Frolic”. The operetta made no great impression on the musical world, but one of its songs ‘Beer, Beer, Beautiful Beer’ has survived the years as ‘The Vagabond’ with words by Charles Lamb Kenney.

Future MP

To what extent the youthful Bernard Charles Molloy lived in the shadow of his brother, it’s difficult at this remove to assess. But as they attended the same college and James was his senior it may be taken for granted that the elder brother played a protective role. James was quite an athlete, and it is probable that much of the physical hardihood marking Bernard’s subsequent career may have been hatched on the playing fields of St. Edmund’s. He certainly walked for a time in the footprints of his brother, finishing his education in London, France and Germany.

There, however, the similarity of their careers ended. For a time the warlike tendencies of Bernard’s forebears surfaced, and he joined the Papal Army then opposing Garibaldi’s second attempt at breaking up papal supremacy. Three years later he was a combatant in the Franco-Prussian War, holding a captaincy in the French army and earning a gold medal for bravery in face of the advancing Germans.

At the conclusion of hostilities he returned to England, the ways of peace, and his studies for the Law. He was called to the Bar in 1872, and shortly afterwards was created a Papal Chamberlain by Pope Pius IX.

None of these honours proved much of an advantage when, in 1874, he contested the Offaly election and failed to gain a seat. Neither was he successful when in that same year his candidature was imposed on the electors of County Louth. Standing later under the Parnellite banner for County Offaly, however, he triumphed in two successive elections that saw him installed as a member of the Westminster Parliament from 1880 to 1890.

Bernard’s interests were never solely political, although cynics might claim there was little to differentiate between his public calling and his private passion - the economical extraction of gold. In pursuit of such scientific studies he made prolonged visits to the United States and Australia. It was on return from one expedition in 1888 that he was described by the Pall MalI Gazette as... “a handsome bronze-faced gentleman”, and “the smartest-dressed man in Parliament”.

That the then public perception of some politicians remains unchanged is evidenced in another report of his return in the Kings County Chronicle of the time. It was pishly concludes... “Perhaps now that he is at home he may well think it fit to visit his constituents, and by letting them see him in the flesh assure them that he is still in the land of the living.”

In contrast to his adventurous youth, Bernard Molloy steered a mild and circumspect path throughout the remainder of his Parliamentary career, confining his contributions to such unexciting subjects as a proposal to establish a telegraph line between St. Vincent in Portugal and the coast of West Africa. He died in London in 1916, Offaly’s Midland Tribune signalising his passing in a sparse fourteen-line report. Many years prior to his death another report relates that he was painting a large Altar Piece to replace an earlier one in the new Catholic church in Clara. Like the Linen Hall Exhange gifted to the town by his grandfather, no trace of the painting can be found.

Through Bernard, however, there is one respect in which the Molloy family succeeded in leaving their stamp upon Offaly. Almost one hundred years ago when the first County Council came into existence, Bernard Molloy presented it with its Seal of Office. It depicted a Celtic Cross and Irish Wolfhound, and a round tower with a background sunburst. Until very recently it was still in use as the official seal of Offaly County Council.

Wedding Bells

While Bernard was adventuring abroad, his brother was providing a seemingly endless stream of songs for the Victorian concert halls. ‘The Old Cottage Clock’, ‘Darby and Joan’, ‘Love Comes Along’, ‘Songs from Hans Andersen’, ‘The Old Refrain’ and ‘The Clang of the Old Wooden Shoon’, were among those added to the growing list of his hits.

That his talents were not confined to music was demonstrated by the publication in 1874 of his book Our Autumn Holiday on French Rivers - a title more suggestive of a schoolboy’s essay than the engagingly written work it turned out to be. It described the trip of four oarsmen and their terrier Gyp on the Seine and the Loire rivers, with excellent illustrations by Linley Sambourne. Four years later it was to serve as a model for Robert Louis Stevenson’s work "An Inland Voyage". If you are blessed with ownership of a copy, treasure it! You will look in vain for it in the National or any other library but that of Dublin’s Trinity College.

It was in this same year that the composer married. His bride was the twenty-one-year-old Florence Emma Baskerville of Crowsley Park, Henley-on-Thames. The marriage took place at the church of Our Lady of Victories, Kensington, Molloy then living at 15 Kensington Square. His brother Bernard was one of three witnesses in attendance, the other two being Abel and Helen Ram.

Two sons were born to the couple, Maurice and Brian, and a daughter, Clarissa. At this time their home was in London, but six years after their marriage they removed to Henley-on-Thames where they settled in a house with the unusual name of Woolleys. It was a charming house with ample grounds and was to remain the family’s home for the foreseeable future. The place is maintained with impeccable taste by its present-day occupiers Mr. and Mrs. Alan Guthrie.

Clarissa was born on the day her parents took up residence there, her father dashing five miles for the services of a doctor. She was baptised in a private chapel in Danesfield, Marlow -her godfather being Bernard Molloy and her godmother Frances Witham. The chapel, another of Pugin’s works, has since been demolished, but its stained glass and reredos are preserved in the Catholic church of Henley-on-Thames.

Clarissa had a flair for letter-writing, and it is thanks to her that something remains on record of the family’s activities in the closing decades of the century. Corresponding with her niece Mary she recalls the leisurely life led at Henley, much of it taken up by shooting parties, tennis - at which her parents excelled - and sculling on the river. They also shared a taste for amateur theatricals, and she describes James Lynam as “a born actor”, and her father and mother as being “a truly ideal couple”.

She far from exaggerated her father’s athletic prowess. “At Dinard last week”, ran one of the rare newspaper reports of his activities, Mr. J. L. Molloy swam from the Priory beach at high water, round the headland to the Casino - from there to St. Malo - from St. Malo to the Cite St. Servan, and back again to Dinard. “The time taken”, the report concluded, “Was four hours - the last two being against current. Two boats with umpires followed”.

The musical world being what it was - and can still be - Molloy wasn’t to escape the barbed criticisms of some of its members. When ‘The Kerry Dance’, for instance, made its debut in 1879 it was claimed that its opening bars were those of a song ‘The Cuckoo’ by an eighteenth century composer, Margaret Casson. It is logical, however, that in music as in literature a theme may in all innocence be duplicated. Ten years later, no less a person than Arthur Sullivan of Gilbert and Sullivan fame had to issue a denial that he had used the first two bars of Casson s song in the opening of ‘When a Merry Widow Marries’ from The Gondoliers’.

G.B.S. strikes

George Bernard Shaw, even more dogmatic in his musical opinions than in his general pronouncements, expressed himself petulantly on one occasion about the work of his fellow countryman. Attending a concert in St. James’s Hall in 1877 he complained of the event being twenty minutes late in starting, adding petulantly.... “Madame Lemmens-Sherrington favoured us with a vocal pastoral symphony by Zaubert containing much imitation of an impossible bird. Being encored, she substituted by way of novelty ‘Come Back to Erin’. She subsequently”, he added, “made the most of a capital piece of claptrap by Molloy entitled ‘Jamie’.”

When James Lynam Molloy died in 1909, his death certificate stated that the event occurred at Woolleys, that the cause of death was pernicious anaemia, and that the signature of the informant was that of Florence Molloy his widow. In Ireland his death went virtually unnoticed, but the London Times recorded it in a two-paragraph report....

“James L. Molloy, who died at his residence, Woolleys, Hambleden, Bucks., on February 4, in his 72nd year, was well known in musical circles, and wrote some charming music for many of the German Reed productions in the seventies - ‘My Aunt’s Secret’, ‘Very Catching’ and others by Sir Francis Burnand. He was also war correspondent for one of the London dailies during the Franco-Prussian War, and was for some time in Paris during the first siege by the Germans.”

“He wrote, among others, a delightful account of a roving trip in France entitled Our Autumn Holiday on French Rivers, 1873, which ran into several editions and is still a reference book to the Seine and the Loire. He was an accomplished French scholar, and a “bon camarade”, in every sense of the term, and many of his old friends will mourn his loss”.

The same paper on February 22nd 1909, included in a list of wills the information,... “Mr. James Lynam Molloy of Woolleys, Hambleden, Bucks, and of Cornclaire, (sic) King’s County, Ireland, barrister-at-law, better known as a song composer, formerly a war correspondent during the Franco-Prussian War, who died on February 4, aged 71, left estate valued at £2,030....”

“Considering the universal popularity of his songs, which have been sung wherever our language is spoken”, commented The Globe newspaper, “it is not going too far to describe James Molloy as a famous composer. There is not a single British home we would venture to say which boasts a piano and singer which a few years ago did not know “Love’s Old Sweet Song”. It had just the right combination of melody and sentiment, and easy enough to singer and accompanist to become a general favourite.”

Surprisingly brief in view of Molloy’s background was the Irish Times note of his death on the day following the event. “Of late years his vogue had declined very much in favour of songs of a more ambitious and often less melodious type”, it ran, “but many of his earlier compositions will last as long as ballad concerts are held”.

Still preserved in the scrapbook of the song writer’s widow is the published appreciation of a friend which in its directness and simplicity encapsulates Molloy’s career. It reads... “The present writer wishes to offer this slight tribute to the memory of a friend of his extreme youth, an especially excellent man, an edifying Catholic, and one of the most successful composers of the immediate past”.

Five years before his death, Molloy had made a short will in favour of his wife, naming her as sole executrix. Witnesses to the will were a London barrister named Mulligan and the barrister’s clerk.

Word Picture

In stark contrast to the brevity of her husband’s will is that of Florence Emma. Such is the detail that no great flight of imagination is needed to conjure up the interior of Woolleys from the shadows of the past. The well-loved belongings of a lifetime evoke a vivid image of the home soon to be lost to her.... “To my son Brian Charles Baskerville I leave the cabinet in the hall at Woolleys; the carved armchair; the black engravings; the John Baskerville blue china; the eight Molloy spoons; and the oil paintings on the top landing”. Brian also benefited to the tune of £300.

Any reason for bequeathing the greater sum of £1,000 to her son Maurice was left unsaid, but some slight partiality might be suspected in her leaving to him also.... “my china, glass, books, pictures, prints, wines, liquors, furniture and other household effects....” Such personal items must have ranked high in her estimation. It was, however, her only daughter Clarissa - known affectionately to future generations of the family as ‘Aunt Clarice’ - who emerged as the really favoured one. “...to my daughter Marie Clarice all my plate and linen; my motor car; and all the rest of my estate, property and effects for her sole and separate use....” To this was added the wish, couched in customary stilted legalise, that Clarice should leave £1,000 to each of the brothers or their children.... “if they my said sons or either of them should predecease my daughter and leave issue, her surviving”.

Clarice was a vigorous and vivacious person whose inheritance of her mother’s motor car - in a day when cars were few and far between - no doubt qualified her to take up ambulance driving as she did in World War I. It was nine years after her mother’s death in 1912 that Clarice decided to become a nun.

She joined the Carmelite Order of Our Lady of the Cenacle at the somewhat advanced age of forty-one. Eleven years later she was appointed Mother Superior at the Order’s house in Liverpool, and subsequently was made Novice Mistress. She is remembered by members of her Order as an excellent librarian and a person who remained strikingly active until her death at Liverpool as recently as 1973 at the age of 93.

The Descendants

Until 1995, the nearest surviving male relative of the composer was his grandson, Simon Molloy, whose home was at Wallingford in Oxfordshire. He knew little or nothing of his lineage - a peculiarity common to other members of the family and one attributed to his father’s lack of interest in the past. “My father was a very reticent man”, he recalled. “He rarely alluded to the past or had anything to say about the family’s history”.

Nevertheless this man who was born in London, lived in England most of his life, and was so tight-lipped about his family background, had the eldest of his sons christened Simon Kedo John.

Simon knew nothing of former Molloy property holdings, had no information on the possible whereabouts of a Cornalaur home, and could contribute nothing on the family’s background in Clara. The only link in recent times with County Offaly of which he was aware was a visit there made by England-based cousins some thirty years before. “My uncle Brian’s daughter, Mary Elizabeth Cobbold, visited a place called Broughal in 1963 and took photographs of it”, he recollected. “It was partly ruined, with a castellated wall, and a round tower at one end”.

Simon’s uncommunicative father, Maurice Treacy Molloy was born in 1876 and educated at the noted Oratory School founded by Cardinal Newman. He became a land agent, and in that capacity went to the United States to work for Howard Gould the millionaire. World War I saw him claimed by the British Army and serving later in Naval Intelligence. Invalided out towards the end of the conflict, he resumed his former profession as land agent and died in 1965 aged 88.

Apart from being born thirty-nine years later, Simon’s career was a carbon copy of his father’s. He was educated at the same school, became a land agent, and predictably fulfilled his duty to his adopted country by winding up an officer in the army of World War II. In May 1940, his battalion acted as a flank guard during the withdrawal of the British Expeditionary Force towards Dunkirk. Surrounded by Germans, most of the battalion were killed or captured, and Simon spent the rest of the war years as a prisoner. On return to civilian life, he, like his father, returned to work as a land agent. He died unexpectedly in September 1995, and is survived by his widow, Moyra, and two daughters.

With his death the mantle of closest surviving descendant of the composer fell on Esther, Simon’s sister, and grand-daughter of James Lynam Molloy. She is married to Phillipe de Liedekerke whose experiences read like a page from a World War II novel.

He was one of those who, when German forces spilled across Europe at the outset of World War II, chose to risk the dangers outside his country rather than suffer the humiliations inseparable from occupation. He was imprisoned in Petain’s France and had similar experiences in Spain and Algeria before reaching Britain almost a year after leaving his native country.

Taking on the role of secret agent he parachuted three times into Belgium in the course of his assignments. When war ended he joined the Belgian Diplomatic Corps - his last three posts being those of Ambassador. Esther Molloy is now the Countess de Liedekerke.

“My father was a very reticent man”, she recalled. (There was that phrase again!) “He spoke little about the past, my Uncle Brian was dead before I was born, and we rarely saw Aunt Clarice who would have been more forthcoming. We were always led to believe that our grandparents eloped, due to grandfather being a Catholic and not approved of by my grandmother’s family, the Baskervilles”.

Strangely, this “reticent man” who never spoke of the past, at one stage gave his daughter an account of the O’Molloys taken from a history of Ireland translated from the French of the Abbe Mac Geogheoan. Added to the account were the names of several distinguished Molloys of Offaly including those of James Lynam Molloy and his brother, Bernard.

The roots of the Irish are tenacious.

How well founded the tale of the couple’s elopement may be, even their grandaughter is uncertain. The Baskervilles were an important Protestant Oxfordshire family and possibly had reservations about the marriage of their twenty-one-year-old daughter to a Catholic, and a man, however gifted, who was fifteen years her senior. In the event, the marriage appears to have been an ideal one without religious discord to blemish it.

Although none of James Lynam Molloy’s children opted for a military career, they were nevertheless swept up in the war effort of their adopted country, and made significant contributions to it. Brian Charles Baskerville Molloy was killed in the first year of the conflict fighting on the Franco-Belgian border. James, one-time journalist with G. K. Chestertons publications G.K.’s Weekly, included among his exploits landing by glider near Pegasus Bay on D. Day, 1944. He took part in the Battle of the Bulge, and was wounded on the Dortmund Ems Canal. Begrudgery?

Contemporary references to the Offaly song-writer are few enough and far between in view of the popularity of his ballads. An exception is the writer Ralph Thomas who, in a letter to the Irish Book Lover early in the present century, marvelled at the lack of recognition afforded the composer in certain quarters.

“I used to meet him in the sixties at a friend’s where his great musical abilities made him conspicuous,” he wrote. “It is difficult to account for his name never having appeared in Who’s Who until after his death, considering the number of young men there who have never done more than write a few novels. Certainly the young mens’ books are not known all over the world like Molloy’s works. The notice in Who’s Who”, Thomas adds, “only occupies seven lines and only mentions four songs his name is not in Grove’s Dictionary of Music, but Dr. Riemann in his dictionary gives him a few lines. Molloy first appears in Who’s Who the year after his death, yet his musical compositions occupy twenty pages of the catalogue of the British Museum Library, the first date being 1865 and the last 1904”.

In the course of his letter Thomas commented “... the title Molloy was most proud of (omitted from Who’s Who) was that of Chamberlain at the Court of the Vatican”. This provoked a letter to the same journal from the well-known W. H. Grattan Flood.

“I also knew this composer”, he wrote. He was born at Cornelare,(sic) King’s County, and named after his maternal grandfather... Mr. Thomas errs in stating he was a Papal Chamberlain. It was his brother Bernard, for twenty years M.P. for King’s Co., who enjoyed that honour...…”

This would appear to be a fit juncture at which to lay this particular ghost. On the unimpeachable authority of the Vatican Archivist, Pope Leo XIII conferred the ‘Cameriere d’Onore Spada e Cappa Supernumerario’ on James Molloy on 22nd November, 1883. (Gerarchia Cattolica, 1884, page 514). Translated, the award would read……“Chamberlain of Honour, Cloak and Sword.”

Ralph Thomas was writing of a period when a snobbish strata of musical circles was vehemently resisting innovations in musical taste. This, and what the writer refers to as Molloy’s “Irish modesty” may account for the scantiness of contemporary notice afforded the composer.

Nevertheless there were those among the music critics who recognised his talent - some quite early in his career. “The Clang of the Wooden Shoon”, for instance, music and words by Molloy, was written in 1875 and evoked immediate appreciation. “Strikingly original”, commented a reviewer. “It is of the type to which belongs the songs which have become “national”. Hitherto Mr. Molloy’s publications have been accepted and their shortcomings condoned on account of their freshness and tunefulness. But here is something which, in its way, is quite masterful.... the composer’s difficulty will be to sustain the excellence to which he has attained in “The Clang of the Wooden Shoon”.

Intriguingly the only subsequent publication of this song was in the United States in 1930 - fifty-five years after it was written and twenty-one years after the composer’s death.

Yet another critic voiced his approval of Molloy’s works in terms of…… “He is an amateur who is endowed with the skill and originality of a master”. And in a reference to the composer’s book added... “Mr. Molloy’s literary gift is of the highest”.

A breath from the Victorian concert halls so inseparable from the composer’s work is afforded by a reviewer who reports... “Mr. Molloy introduced a new song called ‘Three Merry Men’ which to judge by its reception on Wednesday will be as popular as ‘Nancy Lee’. It has the double merit of being well adapted to please the multitude while possessing, at the same time, qualities which the musician will not despise. Above all it has the special merit of being both melodious and dramatic”

The report is lent a pleasing air of immediacy in concluding... “Sung with great spirit by Mr. Barrington-Foote, we believe it will be one of Mr. Molloy’s greatest successes. It was encored with tremendous enthusiasm...…”

The Motherland

Surprisingly, given his upbringing and general circumstances, a notable characteristic of the Offaly songwriter was his manifest leaning towards things Irish. Here was someone who at an early and impressionable age was plunged into alien surroundings and an alien culture. Most of his youth and almost all of his adult life was spent in an environment little likely to instil an awareness and a liking for his native country. Boyhood left behind, his contacts with Ireland were limited to the time spent in Dublin as a student at the Catholic University, and an odd holiday period.

Through no fault of his own he had become one of the company of exiles rarely now alluded to. Not one of the majority driven by poverty to look elsewhere for a living, but one of those whose absence from their home country was dictated by vastly different circumstances.

When Molloy’s father died in 1842, Ireland had already experienced some of the extremes of agrarian outrage. Worse was to follow, and a great number of landowners appointed agents, lived in England, and drew their rents in almost total ignorance and indifference to the methods by which those rents were extracted. All too often the agents feathered their own nests at the expense of owners and tenants alike. The composer’s grandson readily admitted to the Molloys being absentee landlords and having experienced difficulties of administration.

In spite of such adverse circumstances there is ample proof of the tug of Molloy’s Irish roots. In 1873, in partnership with John Liptrot, he compiled the first edition of ‘Songs of Ireland’, a collection devoted entirely to works about his native country.

Nine years later its fourth edition was announced with the preamble .... “New and enhanced edition... including the most favourite of Moore’s Irish Melodies and a large collection of old songs and ballads with new symphonies and accompaniments”.

Scattered among his numerous compositions are titles such as ‘An Irish Reel’, ‘Bantry Bay’, ‘My Native Land’, ‘The Harp’, ‘Lily’s Reason’, ‘The Irish Piper’, and ‘Thady O’Flinn’, while -shade of Judy Garland and the Easter Parade! - his publisher’s list includes as a traditional Irish air ‘The Pretty Girl Milking Her Cow’.

‘The Kerry Dance’ and ‘Bantry Bay’, each with music and words by the composer, are far from being mere products of the imagination. Small but significant touches serve as reminders of his Irish heritage....

When the boys begin to gather
In the glen of a summer night...

he reminisces in ‘The Kerry Dance’. Not ‘the lads’ or ‘the young’ as others might express it, but ‘the boys’ with the suggestion of an ‘H’ in it is his natural choice.

The Celtic trait of melancholy evident in such personalities as James Clarence Mangan, Sarah Curran, and Charles Stewart Parnell was no stranger to Molloy. In the same song the gaiety of .… Lads and lassies to your places Up the middle and down again Ah, the merry-hearted laughter Ringing through the happy glen... lapses into the contrasting sadness of..… Time goes by and the happy years are dead And one by one the merry hearts are fled Silent now is the wild and lonely glen Where the bright glad laugh will echo ne’er again Only dreaming of days gone by, in my heart I hear Loving voices of old companions Stealing out of the past once more And the sound of the dear old music Soft and sweet as in days of yore.

More than one lyricist collaborated with Molloy as the songs kept coming with a frequency rivalled only in later years by Irving Berlin. By far the most regular of the composer’s associates, however, was Fred E. Weatherley who provided the words for more than thirty songs including ‘Our Last Waltz’, ‘Darby and Joan’, and ‘London Bridge’.31

So to the end...

Molloy’s stupendous output of songs commenced in 1864 and covered a period of forty years. Operettas occupied much of his attention in the early period, but by 1879 he had found his true metier and soared into instant popularity with his songs ‘The Old Cottage Clock’ and ‘The Kerry Dance’. Remarkably, he was close to sixty years old when he composed the greatest success of all. It was in 1894 that ‘Love’s Old Sweet Song’ charmed the dying years of the nineteenth century. The words were by Clifton Bingham who was also responsible for the lyrics of Molloy’s ‘Golden Bells’, ‘My Own Good Man’, ‘Only Youth is Happy’, and ‘We’ll Keep the Old Grey Mare, John’, and the song was introduced to the public by Antoinette Sterling.

Antoinette was the leading ballad singer of her day. She was born in 1850 at Sterlingville, New York, (could the first part of the name have been adopted by her as a pseudonym?) and was an accomplished singer of classical music. It was in ballad-singing, however, that she excelled and quickly became the darling of Victorian concert halls. ‘Love’s Old Sweet Song’ - sometimes described as ‘Just a Song at Twilight’ - earned her royalties for many years after its introduction, and even rated a mention in Joyce’s Ulysses.

Unfortunately World War II saw the destruction of much of the records of Boosey and Hawkes, Molloy’s publishers, and copies of his songs are not generally available. Many may still survive, however, in little-used cupboards of colleges and convents and the dusty interiors of piano stools.

Most to be admired about the composer’s work is his facile combination of words and melody in songs like ‘The Kerry Dance’ and ‘Bantry Bay’ for which he alone was accountable. This twofold gift is nowhere more apparent than in the latter work where Molloy’s nostalgic evocation of the past is convincing evidence that at some time in his life he was no stranger to the scene of which he sang…… As I’m sitting all alone in the gloaming It might have been but yesterday That we watched the fisher’s sails all homing ‘Til the little herring fleet at anchor lay Then the fisher girls with baskets swinging Came running down the old stone way Every lassie to her sailor lad was singing A welcome back to Bantry Bay. Then we heard the piper’s sweet notes tuning And all the lassies turned to hear As they mingled with a soft voice crooning ‘Til the music floated down the wooden pier ‘Save ye kindly Colleen Bawn’ said the piper ‘Hands across and trip it while I play’ And tender sounds of song and merry dancing Stole softly over Bantry Bay. As I’m sitting all alone in the gloaming The shadows of the past draw near And I see the loving faces around me That used to glad the old brown pier Some have gone on their last long homing Some are left, but they are old and grey And we’re waiting for the tide in the gloaming To sail upon the great highway To the land of rest unending All peacefully from Bantry Bay.

Poet Shelley expressed it well……

Our sweetest songs are those
that tell of saddest thought.