From the archives: Connaught Telegraph announced comeback of Mayo prima donna Margaret Burke-Sheridan
By Tom Gillespie
IN the edition of The Connaught Telegraph of July 31, 1943, the newspaper, in an article by ‘J.J. C.', exclusively announced that prima donna, and Castlebar native, Margaret Burke-Sheridan ‘is to sing again’.
The article read: ‘The Irish nightingale’ - so has Margaret Burke-Sheridan been described by the musical critics of Europe - is to sing again.
This is truly front-page news for lovers of the Divine Art, and The Connaught Telegraph has, through the courtesy of Miss Sheridan, been privileged to make the announcement.
The world famous prima donna, whose golden voice has enthralled countless thousands of the operas lovers of Italy into ecstasy, and brought honour and glory to the land of her birth, is coming back again.
That her welcome return will find her fame undimmed is a certainty. Her long series of triumphs on the operatic stages has not made her forget the songs so dear to the hearts of the Irish people.
Her ‘Madame Butterfly’ won her the applause of princes and potentates in other countries, but we are quite sure that, despite the heights she deservedly reached in this and other roles in operas, with the grace which is ‘beyond the reach of art’, and which nature alone can give, she found herself ‘more at home’, when her thoughts strayed back to the Emerald Isle as she sang ‘The Kerry Dance’, etc.
A few months ago, when ‘Spectator’ of The Irish Independent was here, we passed the house on the Green where Miss Sheridan was born.
“Look,” I said, “that is where your friend Margaret Burke-Sheridan was born.”
We were on the footpath and he moved out to the middle of the road. “You don’t mean it?” “Yes”, I replied, “that is where your prima donna first saw the light, and there is the Green she played on as a child.”
He gazed at the house for fully a minute and then made the request: “Do tell me something about her.”
At that moment the horn of the motor in which he was to go to Cong ‘honked’ and we parted.
It is a pity that Noel Hartnett, when compering ‘Question Time’ a few weeks ago in the Military Barracks, Castlebar, put the question, not to one of the older generation, but to a boy of 18: “I was born in Mayo. Tens of thousands of people listened to me in Italy and elsewhere, Who am I?”
There were hundreds in the hall who were eager to answer, but they were pledged to silence.
If Miss Sheridan were ‘listening in’ she must have felt that she was forgotten, but boys of 18 nowadays, I regret to say, know little of the history of those times.
This applies generally. They know the Hollywood actors and the latest jazz tunes, but for knowing anything about your own - oh, no! Yet who can blame them? Times have changed since the subject of this sketch learned the rudiments of music from her old friend, Mother Antonio (RIP).
Others like ‘Spectator’ and particularly Castlebar folk might be anxious to know something about her antecedents.
Her mother was one of the Burkes of Greenhills, halfway between Castlebar and Westport - a very influential family, while her grandfather was married to one of the Martyrs of Ballinahinch, Co. Galway. Her grandfather owned the Pheasant Hill property, two miles from Castlebar.
Mother Mary Bernard Leonard, of the Convent of Mercy, was a cousin of Margaret’s father, and was also in turn a cousin of Count Taaffe.
The Sheridans, through marriage, were related to De Exeter-Jordans of Rathslevan and Thornhill.
Her mother was daughter of John Cooley, who was engineer at the building of the Military Barracks in Castlebar, and later owned the whole single side of Lucan Street.
Finally, through his mother, Margaret’s father could claim direct descent from Theobald Burke, son of Grace O’Malley, who is buried in Ballintubber Abbey, the late Fr. Tom O’Malley, P.P., Islandeady, being of the same line of descent.
It is to be regretted that there was an fortunate misunderstanding with Miss Sheridan when she visited Castlebar for the carnival in 1939.
She accepted the invitation to be present at the celebrity concert to be held at the County Cinema, at which an address of welcome was to be presented to her on behalf of the people of the town.
She evidently read into the press announcement that she was expected to sing. Such was not the case.
She informed me in her letters that she was compelled to rest her voice, and that she was fully appreciated by the promoters.
Her friends and admirers were anxious to greet her, and that was all that was intended.
Her presence at the concert would have been something to remember. But she was, at that time, preparing to undergo a serious operation, which, in fact, we were not aware of.
As it was I who was charged by the promoters with the duty of conveying their invitation to Miss Burke-Sheridan, it is a matter of keen regret to me that the intention was misinterpreted.
However, through a Castlebar friend of hers, whom she met recently in Dublin, she expressed regret that there has been a misunderstanding, and hopes, as she put it so nicely, to meet her dear old friend when ‘It’s Moonlight in Mayo’ in the near future. That she will receive a hearty cead mile failte she can rest assured. Who knows but she may be with us the day the new organ in the Church of the Holy Rosary will be blessed, and crown the occasion by singing ‘Ave Maria’, the rendering of which has won for her, in many a Catholic home in Eire, the praise and prayers of all who have heard it either over the radio or on a gramophone record.
By the way, it is a surprise to her many admirers all over that we do not get the opportunity of listening to her from our own radio station.
The gramophone records are, after all, poor substitute for the real flesh and blood idol of the multiplied thousands who, to use a homily expression, would ‘stand knee deep in the snow’ to hear her sing.
Now that she is ‘coming back’, we will be looking forward to hearing her frequently from Radio Éireann. There is no doubt that those in charge will be only too delighted to include the possessor of such a glorious voice on their programmers, and send it forth on the ether waves to charm their listeners, not only in this island of ours, but in distant lands where her name is synonymous with all that its true, graceful and inspired in music.