Boston Forms a Thomas Moore Club in 1852 to Honor Ireland's Hallowed Bard
Thomas Moore by Martin Archer Shee ca. 1817, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin Born on May 28, 1779 in Dublin, Ireland, poet and lyricist Thomas Moore was so beloved in Boston that a group of his followers formed a Thomas Moore Club in his honor on May 3, 1852, to celebrate the life and musical genius of Ireland's most famous man. Moore had died the previous February. The first annual celebration of the Thomas Moore Club occurred at the Merchant's Exchange Hotel on State Street in Boston 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. Boston had known about Moore's work from the beginning of the writer's illustrious career. 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. The Melodies quickly found their way into th...