An Dá Phianó – A Tale of Two Pianos

Tugaim suntas inniu do chuntas a roinn na scríbhneoirí cáiliúla Edith Oenone Somerville (1858-1949) agus Violet Martin (1862-1915), a ghlac chuici féin an t-ainm cleite Martin Ross. Tháinig an bheirt ar dhá phianó le linn dóibh saoire deich lá a chaitheamh in Árainn i samhradh na bliana 1895. Bhain na huirlisí luachmhara seo le tithe dá raibh gabháltais fairsinge ag dul leo, teaghlaigh a bhí in acmhainn sa naoú céad déag. Ach cé a thug isteach an dá phianó? Cé a sheinn iad? Agus cén ceol a sheinn siad?

Le caoinchead Bhertie & Treasa Joyce, Cill Mhuirbhigh

D’fhan na col seisearacha Somerville agus Ross i dteach i gCill Éinne ar a dtugtaí Killeany Lodge ina raibh ‘horsehair sofa’ agus ‘semi-grand piano’ (21). Sílim go dtáinig an pianó áirithe seo isteach sa teach go luath sa naoú céad déag. Ní dóigh gurb é an smuglálaí iomráiteach as an gCaorán ar an gCeathrú Rua, Máirtín Mór Ó Máille de shliocht Ghráinne Mhaol, a thug isteach é; ná ní dóigh gurb é a nia Máirtín (b.c.1789), a tháinig ina dhiaidh sa teach úd, ba chúis leis ach oiread. Sílim gurb ag a bhean siúd, Mary Anne D’Arcy (1793-1871), a bhí an cumas chun pianó a sheinnt agus gur chuicise a tugadh isteach é. De réir tuairisc Tim Robinson, bhain Mary Anne le clann dá raibh grúdlann cháiliúil acu i mBaile Átha Cliath (41) agus, mar a scríobhann Arthur Loesser go gonta faoi cheoltóirí ban na linne a bhain le haicme áirithe:

Among the genteel ranks, the lord and master of a house understood that the idleness of his wife and daughters was a necessary feature of his prestige as a gentleman…. Simple idleness, however, is a negative thing that had little ostentative glow; it looked more ladylike to do something uselessly pretty than to do nothing… (267)

Dá mba le Mary Anne an pianó, is cosúil gur fhág sí ina diaidh é nuair a d’aistrigh sí go Baile Átha Cliath sna 1850í tamall i ndiaidh bás a fear; ní heol dom, áfach, cad a tharla don bpianó i ndiaidh 1895. Maidir leis an gceol a bhí á sheinm aici, seans go bhfuil leid i measc na n-amhrán a chan neach lena fear, Maria Gorham (c.1842-1935). Roinn sise Eibhlín a Rúin agus An Chúilfhionn – amhráin a bhain go mór le stór pianó an ré úd – leis an Athair Luke Donnellan nuair a bhailigh seisean amhráin in Árainn.

Tháinig Somerville agus Ross ar an dara pianó i gCill Mhuirbhigh lá dá raibh siad ag teacht anuas as Dún Aonghusa:

Near Kilmurvey the Resident Magistrate’s house shows a trim roof among young larch and spruce, a miracle of modernity and right angles after the strewn monstrosities of the ridge above; passing near it, a piano gave forth a Nocturne of Chopin’s to the solitude, a patrician lament, a skilled passion, in a land where ear and voice have preserved the single threads of melody, and harmony is as yet unwoven (29-30).

Murab cuairteoir a bhí á sheinnt, sílim gurb í bean an tí, Lily O’Flaherty Johnston (c.1857-1944), a bhí ag seinm ceol Chopin. Murab í Lily a thug isteach an pianó, b’fhéidir gurb í a máthair Julia Irwin, a tógadh i Ros Comáin, a thug isteach é am éigin i ndiaidh 1878. Ba cara agus iontaobhaí le muintir Irwin an t-aturnae, leabharlannaí, bailitheoir ceoil, agus staraí mór na Gaillimhe James Hardiman (1782-1855), agus phós mac leisean deirfiúr Lily, Julia (384). Síltear gurb é an pianó céanna é atá i dteach Chill Mhuirbhigh ó shin – uirlis éanadáin ar a bhfuil cosa stíl Londain, is cosúil, a díoladh i mBaile Átha Cliath.

Edith Somerville & Martin Ross [Violet Martin], Some Irish Yesterdays (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1906); Tim Robinson, Stones of Aran: Labyrinth (Dublin: Lilliput Press, 1995); Arthur Loesser, Men, Women and Pianos: A Social History (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1954 (1990)); Luke Donnellan, ‘Eibhlin a Rúin’, Journal of the County Louth Archaeological Society 2.4 (November 1911), pp.416-417; Luke Donnellan, ‘The Coulin’, Journal of the County Louth Archaeological Society 3.1 (December 1912), pp.12-13.

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In the summer of 1895, the writers Edith Oenone Somerville (1858-1949) and Violet Martin (1862-1915) – who used the pen-name Martin Ross – spent ten days holidaying in Árainn. There, they came across two pianos in local houses with substantial holdings of land, households that could afford pianos. So who brought the pianos to Aran? Who played them? And what music did they play?

Somerville and Ross stayed in Killeany Lodge, which had a ‘horsehair sofa’ as well as a ‘semi-grand piano’ (21). I reckon this piano arrived in Aran in the early nineteenth century when the house was occupied by the O’Malleys. The well-known smuggler and descendent of the pirate queen Grace O’Malley, Máirtín Mór O’Malley from An Caorán in An Cheathrú Rua, is unlikely to have brought the piano in, as is his nephew Máirtín (b.c.1789) who succeeded him there. Máirtín’s wife, on the other hand, is the most likely occupant to have had the ability to play the piano and to have brought the semi-grand to Cill Éinne. According to Tim Robinson, Mary Anne D’Arcy (1793-1871) belonged to a Dublin brewing family (41) and, as Arthur Loesser piquantly observes about contemporary female musicians of a particular class:

Among the genteel ranks, the lord and master of a house understood that the idleness of his wife and daughters was a necessary feature of his prestige as a gentleman…. Simple idleness, however, is a negative thing that had little ostentative glow; it looked more ladylike to do something uselessly pretty than to do nothing… (267)

If Mary Anne owned the piano, she left it behind her when she moved to Dublin in the 1850s a while after her husband’s death; its fate after 1895 is, as yet, unknown. As for the music she played on it, perhaps there is a clue in the repertoire of her husband’s niece, Maria Gorham (c.1842-1935). She shared Eibhlín a Rúin and An Chúilfhionn – traditional songs that were appropriated by the nineteenth-century parlour piano tradition – with Fr Luke Donnellan when he collected songs in Aran.

Somerville and Ross found the second piano in Cill Mhuirbhigh upon their descent from Dún Aonghusa:

Near Kilmurvey the Resident Magistrate’s house shows a trim roof among young larch and spruce, a miracle of modernity and right angles after the strewn monstrosities of the ridge above; passing near it, a piano gave forth a Nocturne of Chopin’s to the solitude, a patrician lament, a skilled passion, in a land where ear and voice have preserved the single threads of melody, and harmony is as yet unwoven (29-30).

I reckon the Chopin nocturne – a staple of nineteenth-century European parlour piano music – was being played, if not by a visitor, then by the woman of the house, Lily O’Flaherty Johnston (c.1857-1944). If Lily didn’t bring the piano into Aran sometime after 1878, perhaps it was her mother, Julia Irwin from Roscommon. The famous Galway historian, solicitor, librarian, and music collector James Hardiman (1782-1855) was a friend and trustee of the Irwins and his son married Lily’s sister, Julia (384). The piano that is now in Kilmurvey House – apparently a cottage/birdcage piano with London-style legs, which was sold in Dublin – could well be the same instrument.

Edith Somerville & Martin Ross [Violet Martin], Some Irish Yesterdays (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1906); Tim Robinson, Stones of Aran: Labyrinth (Dublin: Lilliput Press, 1995); Arthur Loesser, Men, Women and Pianos: A Social History (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1954 (1990)); Luke Donnellan, ‘Eibhlin a Rúin’, Journal of the County Louth Archaeological Society 2.4 (November 1911), pp.416-417; Luke Donnellan, ‘The Coulin’, Journal of the County Louth Archaeological Society 3.1 (December 1912), pp.12-13.