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CHAPTER 2

From Girlhood to Womanhood

I have never loved any place better than those old places; or any voice better than those old voices. I have been faithful to them in my heart even when I have deliberately turned my feet from them, seeking far places and far voices.1

Patrick Pearse

Eighteen ninety-one was a significant year in the education of the Pearse family as three of the four children, Margaret, Patrick and Willie, started secondary school. Patrick and Willie were enrolled at the Christian Brothers School (CBS) in Westland Row and Margaret, aged thirteen, commenced her studies at the Sisters of the Holy Faith School, Clarendon Street, which opened in 1873. Margaret excelled at school, receiving first place in all subjects. She had a particular talent for public speaking, and French, music and embroidery were her favourite classes. Margaret praised the school’s monthly system of oral examinations in all subjects which created a competitive environment among the students. She was diligent and often studied through the night for the monthly examinations set by visiting sisters from the Holy Faith convent in Glasnevin. Margaret’s exceptional memory ensured that she could easily memorise lengthy texts and data. She enjoyed being challenged intellectually and eagerly anticipated the weekly visits of the Vincentian priest Fr John Gowan (co-founder of the Sisters of the Holy Faith order) who invariably posed difficult linguistic and mathematical questions.

On one occasion, he recited the numbers one to ten in Latin. In preparation for his next visit, Margaret, the school’s most exemplary student, was asked by the Headmistress to memorise as many English derivatives of the ten Latin numerals as she could. Margaret succeeded in memorising seventy derivatives which greatly impressed Fr Gowan.2 Another frequent visitor to the school was Fr Murphy, a curate at Westland Row Church, who encouraged the girls to improve their public speaking. Margaret was presented with several prizes by him for her recitation of poetry; her favourite prize was a needlework set which she treasured forever.3

Throughout her life, Margaret spoke in glowing terms of her alma mater and of teachers including Sr Mary Winifred, the Headmistress, Sr Mary Juliana, who taught French, and Sr Mary Joseph, who taught a variety of subjects. As many of her teachers were in their early twenties, Margaret proudly observed that ‘we were [all] young together.’4 In the Centenary Magazine of the Holy Faith Sisters of 1967, she reminisced about the school’s annual Prize Distribution Day where students showcased their talents in recitation and the performance of instrumental and vocal music. In the article, she recalled two poems, Ave Maria and The Uninvited Guest (known as St Gregory’s Guest) by John Greenleaf Whittier, which she had recited at the school’s Distribution Day almost seventy-five years previously. She described it as ‘[o]ne of the happiest days in Clarendon Street’.5 When the Holy Faith Past Pupils’ Union was established in 1933, Margaret became president of the Clarendon branch and was honoured to be elected honorary life president of the Past Pupils’ Union.6

The Pearse home was a religious one, but Margaret’s strong religious faith was also nurtured at school and through membership of the Sodality of the Holy Angels. On Tuesdays, she attended recitations of the Litany of the Angels and, on Saturdays, she participated in the Sodality of the Holy Angels. Many of these religious practices she acquired as a child were continued in adulthood. After completing her studies at the Holy Faith School, she studied for a qualification in domestic economy at the Rathmines Technical Institute (College of Commerce) and, in 1907, she received a certificate of competency from the Leinster College of Irish.

Patrick and Willie’s experience of secondary education at the CBS would have been similar to Margaret’s. The Christian Brothers’ approach, which promoted rote learning and exam-focused curricula, suited Patrick and he passed four grades of the Intermediate examination between 1893 and 1896. A system of rote memorisation did not appeal to Willie and he struggled academically in his years at the CBS. He sat a preparatory examination in 1895, but failed all subjects except Irish. In 1897, aged fifteen, Willie enrolled in evening classes at the Metropolitan School of Art in Kildare Street, Dublin. He enrolled initially as a part-time student, as he was also working during the day as an apprentice sculptor at the family business alongside his father and half-brother, James Vincent, who was a stone carver. He remained registered as a student, some years as a part-time student, but occasionally in full-time study, for the next fifteen years.7 Willie later attended art courses in Paris and at the Royal College of Art in London.

Due to her illness, it is unlikely that Mary Brigid received a formal education like her siblings. She did not attend Mrs Murphy’s School and is not listed as a student of the Holy Faith School. Although she was briefly enrolled at the Metropolitan School of Art with Willie and took a course in German at the Rathmines College of Commerce in 1915, it seems likely that she was primarily educated at home.8 As her older siblings became increasingly occupied with their studies and school commitments, Mary Brigid spent much of the day on her own. Patrick’s schoolwork, in particular, claimed most of his attention and, consequently, he could not spend time with Mary Brigid reading to her or teaching her the Irish language. She fondly remembered the time they spent together in childhood, but was conscious that he was no longer a child and lamented his transition to adulthood:

Although my brother always retained his boyishness, he grew up sooner than any of us! I well remember how surprised I was – and rather contemptuous, I fear – when I first heard him call ‘mother’ instead of ‘mama’, as we all used to do before! Afterwards came a queer feeling of blankness as I began to realise that Pat was rapidly becoming – a man!9

Mary Brigid showed considerable aptitude for music from a young age and was recognised as the most musically talented of the Pearse family. As a young girl, Patrick asked her to set one of his poems, entitled ‘Mother’, to music. When Mary Brigid later performed her arrangement of the song for her own mother, ‘tears of pride and joy came into her eyes as she listened, gazing proudly and fondly upon her “boy” ’.10 Mary Brigid, Patrick and Margaret received piano lessons; Patrick, however, did not progress past simple arrangements of ‘Vesper Hymn’ and ‘Nelly Bly’. It seems that, although Patrick maintained an interest in music all his life and attended performances of operas by the German composer Richard Wagner in Dublin, he had little aptitude for music. Mary Brigid noted that, despite her best efforts to teach him, he never mastered the art of singing:

I used to try him with the scale sometimes, and the result was always excruciatingly funny! He would start off with a most tremendous seriousness and intone in rather a wavering manner: ‘Doh!’ More quaveringly still, and very much out of tune, would come ‘Ray!’ Then, with an appalling suddeness, he would go completely off the scale, and his ‘Me!’ would be at least five notes too high!11

Unlike Patrick, Mary Brigid went on to become an accomplished pianist and later studied theory and harmony with Carl Hardebeck, a noted organist, folk-song collector and leading figure in the Gaelic League and Feis Ceoil. Hardebeck was famed for his arrangements of Irish folk songs, and his style influenced Mary Brigid’s arrangements of Irish airs for voice and harp, and voice and piano, many of which are kept at the Pearse Archive in Kilmainham Gaol.

As the Pearse children grew and developed, it became increasingly clear that Patrick was the force that united them. Ruth Dudley Edwards described the children as a ‘mixed bunch’ in which ‘[a]ll the will seems to have gone into the two eldest, Margaret and Patrick, while the young pair, Willie and Mary Bridget [sic] ... were natural followers’.12 Mary Brigid and Willie may have been ‘natural followers’, but they were undoubtedly enthusiastic ones, as Patrick took a genuine interest in each of his siblings’ pursuits. Much has been written about the close bond that existed between Patrick and Willie. They attended the same school, socialised together and enjoyed pastimes such as boxing. Each of the sisters also shared interests with Patrick. Margaret and Patrick’s close bond was centred around their shared passions of religion and education. They regularly attended religious services together, such as the ceremonies of Holy Week and Forty Hours’ Devotion at St Andrew’s Church, Westland Row. Patrick and Margaret made annual visits on the 2nd of August to the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Merchant’s Quay to gain a plenary indulgence from the Portiuncula Indulgence or the Pardon Prayer of St Francis.

On one occasion, Patrick was so keen to gain an indulgence that he jumped off a moving tram after it failed to stop near the church. Unfortunately, he was injured and his face was covered in blood. Fearing that he might be stopped and questioned by police, Patrick ran home.13 Their attendance at religious ceremonies was, however, usually less dramatic. Mary Brigid and Patrick shared a love of the Irish language and Irish folklore. He fostered in her a love of the language by teaching her to read and write Gaelic script, which he had been taught at the CBS. Patrick also read aloud passages from books he studied on Irish legends, including tales about Diarmuid and Gráinne and the death of Cúchulainn.14

Each of the siblings in turn devoted themselves to whichever project Patrick was most passionate about at the time. After he completed his studies, he was appointed pupil-teacher at Westland Row. Too young to enter university, he occupied his time with the development and promotion of Irish culture and the Irish language. In 1896, he and his friend and classmate Edward (Éamonn) O’Neill formed the New Ireland Literary Society. The first of the Society’s regular weekly meetings took place on 1 December 1896 at the Star and Garter Hotel in D’Olier Street. This debating and literary society was an important forum for Patrick to showcase his talents and to hone his skills as an orator. He delivered lectures, participated in debates, gave recitations, and contributed to the Society’s journal, Debate. Topics embraced a wide range of subjects. On 19 January 1897, the debate was ‘That Ireland is Becoming Anglicised’15 and on 1 March 1898, Edward O’Neill, E.A. Murray and James Creevey debated the motion ‘That Rudyard Kipling is not a true poet’.16

Irish themes, however, generally dominated the debates. Although Willie participated in a debate in February 1898 on the motion ‘That the Milesian Invasion of Ireland as Recorded by the Bards is a Myth’, Patrick was the central and most active member of the Society,17 giving three lectures on Irish subjects between March 1897 and January 1898, including his inaugural presidential address, ‘The Intellectual Future of the Gael’, on 19 October 1897 at Costigan’s Hotel, Upper O’Connell Street.18 This lecture along with ‘Gaelic Prose Literature’ and ‘The Folk Songs of Ireland’ were published as Three Lectures on Gaelic Topics by M.H. Gill & Son in 1898.

Mary Brigid and Margaret performed at several of the Society’s social evenings. In April 1897, the sisters performed a piano duet, Whispers from Erin (c.1860) by William Smyth Rockstro. This fantasy for piano was based on two popular contemporary Irish airs, ‘Oft in the Stilly Night’ and ‘The Young May Moon’ by Thomas Moore. Mary Brigid also played an arrangement of the overture to the Lily of Killarney (1862) by Julius Benedict and was listed as the accompanist for the evening, despite being only thirteen years of age.19 The evening also included recitations by Patrick and Edward O’Neill from William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Hamlet. Despite the small stage and lack of costumes or backdrop, the recitations were entertaining and well received; the performances of various amateur singers, however, were less impressive.

Mary Brigid was tasked with accompanying the singers, none of whom provided sheet music for accompaniment. When she asked Patrick if he had any idea what key might best suit their voices, he replied the ‘common or garden key’.20 She informed him that there was no such key, but he reassured her that they all sang in a standard key. Baffled by his ignorance, she left him ‘blissfully unconscious of his absurdity’.21 Mary Brigid’s considerable musical ability and acute musical ear enabled her to accompany the various performers on the night by vamping along with chords. Towards the end of the evening, however, one of the soloists who impressed her with his excellent voice during rehearsal, struggled to sing in tune. She later recalled the horrific experience:

he had a nice voice. Afterwards his song would also have been very nice if he had only remained in the one key, instead of roaming through about six! For three verses of ‘The Risin’ of the Moon’ I chased him madly all over the piano, wondering which of us would break down first. By the time the moon had fully risen the piano part was ended, and I was a complete wreck! Pat’s ‘common or garden key’ seemed to have rather an elastic compass!22

The New Ireland Literary Society disbanded in 1898 because Patrick was increasingly preoccupied with his studies and his involvement in the Gaelic League (Conradh na Gaeilge), founded in 1893 by Douglas Hyde and Eoin MacNeill to preserve Irish as the national language of Ireland and to encourage the study of Gaelic literature. In 1887, the Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language had also attempted to promote Irish by advocating that it should be taught in schools and spoken more frequently, but it was the League that would succeed in popularising the language and reviving various Gaelic practices. The final decades of the nineteenth century were marked by the formation of various cultural movements, such as the Gaelic Athletic Association (1884), the National Literary Society (1892), Feis Ceoil (1896) and the Irish Literary Theatre (1898). These movements were part of the reawakening of a national Irish consciousness and a renewal of national spirit, which it was hoped would result in increased cultural and material prosperity.

The Pearse siblings participated in many contemporary cultural movements. They were, undoubtedly, influenced by Patrick’s cultural interests, which primarily centred around the promotion and development of the Irish language. The family’s participation in cultural movements was not unusual as many young people were involved in cultural and/or political activism during this period. As Mary Colum, the author and literary critic commented, young people had ‘a desire for self-sacrifice, a devotion to causes; everyone was working for a cause, for practically everything was a cause’.23

Patrick was the first of the Pearse family to join the Gaelic League, in 1896, and was soon followed by Willie and Mary Brigid. From 1897 onwards, he became more prominent in the League and more vocal at branch meetings. He was an active contributor to the weekly bilingual newspaper Fáinne an Lae, and, in 1898, was co-opted on to the Executive Committee (Coiste Gnótha). In the spring of 1898, he sat the Matriculation and shortly after commenced studying for a Bachelor of Arts in French, English and Celtic (Irish) at the Royal University, and a Bachelor of Law at the King’s Inns and Trinity College, Dublin. Patrick’s participation in the activities of the Gaelic League often distracted him from his studies, but his commitment to the organisation resulted in his appointment as secretary of the Publications Committee from 1900 to 1903 and editor of its newspaper, An Claidheamh Soluis (The Sword of Light), in 1903.

The burden of work often took its toll on Patrick but his family were at hand to support him, even to the point of ensuring that he was not late for giving lectures or attending Sunday morning mass. When the Pearse family lived in Sandymount, each of them took it in turn to call Patrick from 8.00am onwards for midday mass at St Andrew’s Church. Despite never leaving the house before 11.53am, when the train signals dropped, he never missed the train.24 Patrick’s tardiness, and apparently, chaotic life, intrigued his younger sister who wrote a humorous account of several memorable incidents.

As the shrill whistle sounded, and the train steamed into the station, he would be seen sprinting up the platform, triumphant and breathless. Once or twice he just hung on, and was hauled into the guard’s van. The porters all got to know the eccentric gentleman who was always late, and would courteously keep a door open, and push his flying figure into the carriage in the nick of time.25

She recalled sitting in lecture theatres waiting for Patrick to deliver a lecture knowing that he would probably arrive thirty minutes late for the lecture as he was invaribly fast asleep on the couch in the drawing room of their home.

Willie’s association with the Gaelic League began in 1898. He spoke the language fluently and, in between studying, participating in student exhibitions and working, also taught an Irish language class at the Metropolitan School of Art. Mary Brigid’s connection with the League was through Patrick and her harp teacher, Owen Lloyd. Mary Brigid’s fascination with the harp began after she attended a concert featuring a pedal harpist at the Round Room of the Rotunda in Dublin. She expressed an interest in acquiring a harp, but following the closure of Francis Hewson’s Irish and pedal harp manufactory in York Street, Dublin, in 1872, it became increasingly difficult to source an instrument in Ireland. Nevertheless, knowing how enthusiastic she was about the instrument, Patrick eventually purchased a harp for her.

The memory of getting her first harp remained with Mary Brigid for the rest of her life: ‘I still remember the intense rapture with which I at last held the long-wished-for treasure in my trembling arms. I just loved my harp; and I am proud to say that, despite many vicissitudes, the same precious little instrument can sing to-day as sweetly as it sang in those far-off happy days so long gone by!’26 Ruth Dudley Edwards described Patrick’s generosity as ‘a symptom of his engaging open-handedness and disregard for economic pressures’;27 perhaps it was merely Patrick fostering his sister’s talents again as he had done so often during her childhood.

It is most likely that Mary Brigid was introduced to Owen Lloyd by Patrick. Lloyd was a renowned Irish, pedal and wire-strung harpist and Irish language activist, who, through his busy performing career and teaching duties, transformed the perception and repertoire of the Irish harp in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.28 The tradition of wire-strung Irish harp performance had been in decline for centuries, but inspired by the ideologies of various cultural movements of the late nineteenth century, Lloyd was determined to revive an interest in the performance and teaching of the modern Irish harp in Ireland and amongst the Irish disapora in England and Scotland. Both Patrick and Lloyd were prominent members of the Gaelic League and attended several League events together, including the Mayo Feis in April 1903, at which Lloyd performed to great acclaim. Under Lloyd’s guidance, Mary Brigid progressed quickly on the Irish and concert harps.

Lloyd was a member of the committees of An tOireachtas, a major competitive festival organised by the Gaelic League, and Feis Ceoil, an association that promoted Irish music through concerts and annual competitions. Lloyd’s membership of these committees afforded opportunities for his most promising students to perform. Before 1898, branch meetings of the Gaelic League comprised a language class followed by a discussion or debate. The League made little progress in attracting new membership in its early years, having only forty-three branches in 1897. In November 1897, Patrick proposed at a branch meeting that weekly meetings could be made more appealing through a series of lectures and concerts under the auspices of the League. He also suggested that music, drama or dancing be used to attract new members. Gradually, the League restructured and branches (craobhacha) at regional and local level added musical performances, and lectures on Irish history, folklore and culture, to their existing language classes. Branch meetings, particularly in Dublin, began to conform to a practice of concluding with a performance of songs in Irish or with a short recital on the uilleann pipes or harp; Mary Brigid performed regularly at these branch meetings.

In early 1900, Mary Brigid played at monthly meetings of the central branch in Dublin; many of these meetings were chaired by her brother Patrick. Committee members from the branch organised a scoraíocht (social evening), on 10 January, which featured Thomas Rowsome on pipes, pianists, dancers and singers. Mary Brigid performed a selection of harp pieces and sang ‘Bán Chnoic Éireann Ó’ to an enthusiastic audience of over a hundred people.29 The following month, at another branch meeting, she gave a short recital on the harp which included Thomas Moore’s ‘Has Sorrow Thy Young Days Shaded’ and ‘Garryowen with Variations’.30 Her repertoire, which included old harp tunes, song airs and early nineteenth-century compositions by Moore, reflected the varied nature of music performed on Irish harps in this period.

Feiseanna (competitions), both regional and national, and aeríochtaí (concerts) were also an important means of attracting new membership to the League and were crucial media for the revival of various Gaelic practices, such as dancing, piping and Irish harp performance. Eighteen ninety-seven marked the inauguration of An tOireachtas, a new competition under the auspices of the Gaelic League. Lloyd performed regularly at concerts of An tOireachtas and was joined in 1898 by his band of harps, an ensemble consisting of three or four of his harp students who performed two-part arrangements of a repertoire including ‘Carolan’s Concerto’, ‘Dear Harp of my Country’ and ‘Return from Fingal’.31 In May 1900, Mary Brigid, Miss Butler, Nora Twemlow, Nora Collins and Lloyd played ‘Siúd Síos fa mo Dhídean’ and ‘An Filleadh ó Fhine Ghall’. The band of harps was a regular feature at concerts of An tOireachtas during the first decade of its existence.32

Mary Brigid also won several prizes at harp competitions run by An tOireachtas. To acknowledge her success, Patrick purchased a second Irish harp for her, made by James McFall of 22 York Lane, Belfast. The McFall harp, which was strung with gut, was the most advanced contemporary Irish harp. It could be played in thirteen different keys, had a rich tone, and was beautifully decorated in old Celtic ornamentation. Mary Brigid later used this harp to teach students at St Enda’s School, Rathfarnham; this instrument now forms part of the exhibit at the Pearse Museum.33

By the end of the nineteenth century, Margaret, Patrick, Willie and Mary Brigid were enjoying active lives as members of, and contributors to, various cultural movements in Dublin. Their carefree lifestyles were facilitated by the success of Pearse and Sons Monumental Sculptors. In the final decade of the nineteenth century, James had secured prestigious commissions for altars, fonts, carvings, monuments, tablets, and all kinds of marble, stone and granite works. His work could be seen in churches all over Ireland from John’s Lane Church and the mortuary chapel, Glasnevin Cemetery, in Dublin, to the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Strabane and St Saviour’s Church in Waterford. The Pearse family’s idyllic home life, however, was shattered by James’s sudden death on 5 September 1900. He died from a cerebral haemorrhage while visiting his brother in Birmingham. His body was brought back to his home in George’s Villa, Sandymount where he was waked, and his requiem mass was concelebrated at Westland Row Church by Fr Galvin and Fr Murphy, the Administrator.34 His death marked a new phase in the lives of Margaret, Patrick, Willie, Mary Brigid and their mother.