An extract from the latest in our Birth of a Nation Series – The Story of 1926
By Eugene Dunphy
If you were a music fan living in Ireland in 1926, you most certainly would have been aware of the public debate surrounding the following three subjects; radio, jazz, and Irish language songs.
The highly influential Gaelic League had numerous branches within the fledgling Irish Free State, each promoting the language and songs of Ireland, but when it appeared that the national broadcaster was platforming the new music from America more than traditional Irish songs, it raised the hackles of quite a few League members.
Imagine a small town having just one narrow road as the only means of ingress and egress. Now, if that little road was being used all day and all night by over two thirds of the town’s population, there would of course be gridlock. Which leads us nicely to radio in 1926.
In that year, the wavelengths that carried the ever-increasing number of stations were causing traffic chaos in the broadcasting world, the ether being congested with sponsored programmes airing the latest songs and melodies from America.
Irish radio listeners who wanted something other than a diet of Thomas Moore songs or songs in the Irish language – as sometimes offered by the national broadcaster 2RN – tuned their radio sets to the BBC.
There, they could hear the dulcet tones of Vernon Dalhart crooning his recently released Prisoner’s Song, or Al Jolson singing his latest hits, like Bye Bye Blackbird, Sittin’ on Top of the World, and When the Red Red Robin Comes Bob Bob Bobbin’ Along.
They could also hear new releases such as Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue, Baby Face, Are You Lonesome Tonight (later a hit for Elvis), and Louis Armstrong’s foot-stomping instrumental, Heebie Jeebies.
High-ranking clergy, conservative music reviewers, and some musicians of note soon discovered that they had something in common – an aversion to this new American phenomenon known as ‘jazz’.
On the 15th of March 1926, ‘Electron’, radio reviewer for the Dublin Evening Herald, did not pull any punches when he described it as a ‘ruthless massacre of the world’s music’, and in June of that year, while delivering an address at the Feis in Cashel, Monsignor Innocent Ryan, Dean of Cashel, said that every school teacher in Ireland should aim to ‘get rid of the jazz, to banish those lewd, unbecoming and un-Christian songs that were disgracing the nation’. The Dean’s views were very much echoed by Dr Gilmartin, Archbishop of Tuam, who added that jazz dancing was simply ‘unsuitable’ for ‘Irish boys and girls’.
Though some Dublin cinemas were showing the Warner Brothers production His Jazz Bride, it was of little concern to ‘Electron’, the Dean or the Archbishop, it being a silent film. Nevertheless, many Irish people could not get enough of this lewd but appealing ‘massacre’ that was pumping from their radio sets twenty-four hours a day, and as their many ads attest, Gill’s Music Shop in Dublin was not only proud to sell violins, but ‘jazz outfits’ as well.
The summer of 1926 saw a surge in the sale of combined gramophone and radio units which, for a little extra money, could be fitted with ‘loudspeaker horns’ to boost the volume and enhance sound quality.
Perhaps this surge in sales was due in part to the immense popularity of the Savoy Orpheans, a London-based band who were frequently heard on the BBC playing all the latest American jazz songs and instrumentals.
Continue reading in our Centenary Special 1926 – 2026, on sale now in shops or via www.irelandsown.ie
