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Boston Forms a Thomas Moore Club in May 1852 to Celebrate Ireland's Bard


Thomas Moore by Martin Archer Shee ca. 1817, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin

Upon learning of Moore's death in February, 1852, Boston Pilot Publisher Patrick Donahoe and other leaders formed the Club to perpetuate his music.  A group of interested parties from Boston's Irish community formed a Thomas Moore Club on May 3, 1852 to celebrate the life and musical genius of Ireland's most famous bard.     

The first annual celebration of the Thomas Moore Club occurred at the Merchant's Exchange Hotel on May 27, 1852.  The original officers included Thomas Darcy McGee, President; P.H. Powers, Vice-President; John W. Atkinson, Secretary; and Henry Dooley, Treasurer, according to an account in The Boston Pilot, an Irish-Catholic weekly newspaper. 

"About 80 gentlemen sat down to a bounteous table, in a tastefully decorated hall, where mirth and music, peace and harmony, love and good fellowship, seemed to congregate as members or invited guests in paying homage to the departed spirit but ever-living genius of Thomas Moore," wrote The Pilot. 



McGee, who served as the chairman of the dinner, said to the assemblage, "As young men we love him and as young Irishmen we wish to show honor to his memory. In Athens of old, such a man would have been deified, but as we are here in this modern Athens, we take pride in seeing our humble praise coutenanced by the highly intelligent gentlemen who now grace this festive board."

Born in 1779, Moore was considered a poet and patriot who melded his gift of language with his fervor for Irish liberty.  His ten-volume collection of Moore's Melodies, published between 1808 and 1834, helped revitalize interest in Irish music that was in danger of being marginalized and forgotten.  

In Boston, Moore's Melodies quickly found their way into the city's musical community; with several of his songs published as early as 1811.  His songs, particularly Last Rose of Summer, were performed as part of Boston's musical repertoire by famous visiting performers like singer Jenny Lind and violinist Ole Bull. 

In 1869 and 1872, Patrick S. Gilmore featured Moore's songs at the National and International Peace Jubilees, alongside composers like Handel and Mozart. 

In 1879, on the 100th anniversary of Moore's birth, poet John Boyle O'Reilly presided over a banquet at the Parker House honoring his fellow-countryman.  O'Reilly called Moore "an original poet of splendid imagination.....he found scattered over Ireland, mainly hidden in the cabins of the poor, pieces of antique gold, inestimable jewels that were purely Irish....These jewels were the old Irish airs - those exquisite fabrics which Moore raised into matchless beauty in his delicious melodies."

Professor James Flannery of Emory University, who published a book and CD of Moore's songs called, Dear Harp of My Country, said, "The real importance of Moore is that he envisioned a better future for Ireland, even while facing the bitter realities of the present." 

 For more about Boston's Irish history, read Irish Boston: A Lively Look at Boston's Colorful Irish Past, published by Rowman and Littlefield. 

 For more about Boston's Irish heritage, visit IrishHeritageTrail.com.


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