Eugene Dunphy charts the birth and evolution of a patriotic anthem.

 

On the 16th of December 1904, the main function room of the Gresham Hotel in Dublin was packed to capacity with members and supporters of the Young Ireland Branch of the United Irish League. Dignitaries and special guests in attendance included John Dillon, M.P., John E. Redmond, M.P., Joe Devlin, M.P., and barrister and poet Tom Kettle.

Shortly after the speeches were delivered, Donegal comedian Cathal McGarvey, writer of ‘The Star of the County Down’, recited some humorous verses. McGarvey was followed by an up-and-coming tenor from Athlone, twenty-year-old John McCormack, who stepped on to the stage, waited for his accompanist to play the piano intro, and sang with gusto ‘The West’s Awake’.

It was a tremendous performance, said the Freeman’s Journal, adding that the young singer had ‘completely captivated the audience’.

For reasons perhaps best known to his management, John McCormack never actually made a recording of this powerful ballad, the words of which were penned by Thomas Davis who, along with Charles Gavan Duffy and

John Blake Dillon, founded in 1842 the ‘Dublin Weekly Nation’ (‘the Nation’), a newspaper with strong Young Irelander leanings.

Born on the 14th of October 1814, in Mallow, County Cork, as a young man Thomas Davis graduated with a Degree in Logic from Trinity College, Dublin. Between 1836 and 1838 he studied law in England and Europe, but finally decided against pursuing a career as a lawyer and concentrated instead on writing.

The words of Davis’s ‘The West’s Awake’ were first published on the 22nd of July 1843, on page ten of ‘the Nation’, the accompanying note stating that the lyrics would suit an air called ‘The Brink of the White Rocks’.

One year later, the verses were reproduced in ‘The Spirit of the Nation’, a book featuring some of the best poetic contributions to Davis’s newspaper.

In September 1846, when the West of Ireland – indeed the entire island of Ireland – was gripped firmly in the jaws of Famine, the London-based newspaper, ‘The Weekly Chronicle’, condemned Davis’s audacious attempt to persuade Irish people to pursue independence for their country.

Paying particular attention to the patriotic sentiments expressed in the last four lines of the final verse of ‘The West’s Awake’, the ‘Chronicle’ was appalled at the thought of any Irishman wanting to ‘drive from the Irish hive the Saxon drones forever’. In spite of such criticism, ‘The West’s Awake’ was destined to become a rallying call in Ireland, particularly from the 1860s onwards, when the Fenians were active.

Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own