Paul Robeson's sonorous rendition of Kevin Barry (the ballad that starts: "In Mountjoy Jail one Monday morning. . .") is familiar to many older Irish people. I am not so sure that it is well-known, or even known at all, to a younger generation reared on a diet of rock and pop music - and also keeping in mind the State radio station's apparent aversion to patriotic ballads. (How often during the bicentenary year of 1998, for example, did we hear Kelly the Boy from Killane or Boolavogue broadcast on the national airwaves?)
Kevin Barry was written by an Irishman living in Glasgow at the time of the young man's execution and first appeared in ballad-sheet form. Like many writers of seditious songs and ballads, the author remains anonymous, perhaps hiding his identity in fear of oppressive laws and local opprobrium. Yet he must have been aware of the power of the written word, especially in ballad form with its broad appeal to the public. Perhaps he was also aware of the words of the Scottish patriot Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, who once remarked: "Give me the ballads, and let who will make the laws".
Rarely-heard ballad
Barry was the subject of many ballads, some anonymous like the one mentioned above, others penned by well-known personalities such as Constance Markievicz, Rev D.A. Casey, Terry Ward and Padraig Widger.
There is one written by a Drogheda man which has a special interest for the present writer. It is called The Prison Grave of Kevin Barry and has rarely been heard.
The first verse runs: "You are dead today and the cold, cold clay of a prison graveyard lies, On your body still, though your spirit still lives in the land beyond the skies, With the martyred dead, who for Ireland bled, and who perished at the tyrant's hand, And inscribed their name on the roll of fame, of Ireland's patriot band."
The words were penned by Richard Clarke, a member of the Gaelic League, a musician and Irish dancer and a poet of some merit. He was also my wife's grandfather. The air for this ballad about Kevin Barry was composed by a Dublin man, Joseph Stanley, who had taken part in the 1916 Rising and who deserves a special study on his own account.
Affluent background
Stanley, unlike his collaborator Clarke, came from a fairly affluent Dublin background and from an early age was involved in the independence movement. He was Pearse's "press officer" in the GPO in 1916 and wrote and edited the four-page "Irish War News" which appeared on the Tuesday of that fateful Easter Week and which contained Pearse's first communiquΘ announcing the setting up of the Provisional Government.
He had earlier been associated with The Spark, an underground paper which opposed recruitment to British Forces and his interest in newspapers and journalism was to last throughout his life. He was also a prominent publisher and printer in Dublin.
In Drogheda in 1943, Stanley resuscitated the Argus, a weekly paper which had been founded in 1835, and for his first editor appointed another colourful character, Larry de Lacy, who had started his journalistic career on the Enniscorthy Echo in 1908 and who had acted as an emissary for de Valera in the US after 1916. He had also helped to smuggle arms to Ireland from the US and had, in fact, been arrested for consorting with German agents in San Francisco.
Yet this outright Republican was later taken on as a sub-editor on this newspaper, a sure sign of his experience and capability. He was to turn the staid and Ascendancy-oriented Argus into an openly republican paper, as Joseph Stanley wished. While Stanley pursued other interests, such as running cinemas, his chief focus was on his newspaper. He had named three sons, Colbert, Heuston and Kevin Barry, after national heroes; in fact Heuston was manager when this writer first took up a position with the Argus in the early 1950s. Therein lies my second personal interest in Joseph Stanley.
Limited exposure
The manner in which he and Richard Clarke collaborated in publishing The Prison Grave of Kevin Barry has several colourful versions, none of them involving a formal agreement, with the result that the ballad received little publicity and only limited exposure. Perhaps, with a renewed interest in Kevin Barry himself, RT╔ might be able to find a copy and have it broadcast. It could do likewise with Paul Robeson's fine version of Kevin Barry - or is that expecting too much from our national broadcaster?