# Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Molloy, James Lynam

​MOLLOY, JAMES LYNAM (1837–1909), composer, born at Cornalaur, King's Co., Ireland, on 19 Aug. 1837, was eldest son of Dr. Kedo J. Molloy by his wife Maria Thoresa. His brother, Bernard Charles Molloy, born in 1842, was nationalist M.P. for King's Co. 1880–6, and for Birr division 1885–1900. James was educated at St. Edmund's College, Ware, and at the catholic university, Dublin, where he won a junior classical scholarship in 1855, under the rectorship of Cardinal Newman, and graduated in arts in 1858. Among his class fellows were the Roman catholic archbishop of Dublin (Dr. Walsh), and Hugh Hyacinth O'Rorke the MacDermot [q. v. Suppl. II]. He showed much musical ability during his college course, and his singing of the services during Holy Week in 1857 and 1858 attracted attention. The degree of M.A. from the catholic university not being legally recognised, he continued his studies at London University, Paris, and Bonn, and was called to the English bar from the Middle Temple on 6 June 1863. He joined the south-eastern circuit and became a member of Brighton sessions, but did not practise. For a time he acted as secretary to Sir John Holker [q. v.], attorney-general, and resided for many years in London. In 1889 he was made private chamberlain to Pope Leo XIII.
As early as 1865 Molloy issued a number of songs, some of them with words by himself, but he became more ambitious and ventured on an operetta, 'The Students' Frolic,' to a libretto by Arthur Sketchley [see Rose, George, 1817–1882]. Though the piece was not very successful, yet the melody of one of the songs, 'Beer, beer, beautiful beer,' was subsequently utilised and became extremely popular as 'The Vagabond,' words by Charles Lamb Kenney [q. v.]. In 1873 he brought out an edition of Irish tunes entitled 'Songs of Ireland,' of which an enlarged edition appeared in 1882. Between 1865 and 1900 Molloy was responsible for nearly one hundred songs, many of which has a wide vogue, e.g. 'Songs from Hans Andersen,' 'Darby and Joan,' 'The Kerry Dance,' 'Love's Old Sweet Song,' 'Thady O'Flynn,' 'The Clang of the Wooden Shoon,' and 'By the River.' A keen sportman and in early life an athlete, he showed his versitility in a charmingly written prose work, 'Our Autumn Holiday on French Rivers' (1874; 2nd edit. 1879). illustrated by Linley Sambourne [q. v. Suppl. II]. This book describes a voyage up the Seine and down the Loire in a four-oared outrigger, end suggested to Robert Louis Stevenson the similar expedition described in 'An Inland Voyage' (1878) (Balfour's Life of Stevenson, 1910, p. 143). Molloy also furnished music for one of Sir Francis Burnand's early comic operas, 'My Aunt's Secret.'
He spent the remainder of hie life at Woolleys, Hambleden, Henley-on-Thames. He died there on 4 Feb. 1909. In 1874 Molloy married Florence Emma, youngest daughter of Henry Baskerville of Crowsley Park, Henley-on-Thames. He left issue two sons and one daughter.
[Brown and Stratton's Brit. Musical Bio. 1897; O'Donoghue's Poets of Ireland, 1892–3; J. A. O'Shea, Roundabout Recollections, 1892, ii. 98–100; Flood's Hist. of Irish Music, 1905; private information.]
W. H. G. F.