The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1891-10-17
SWEET BELLS OF SHANDON.
Father Prout, One Of a Famous Group
Whose Name Lives In
History.
WAS BORN IN SWEET KILLARNEY.
Still Do the Sweet Old Chimes Ring
In the Ears of Irish
Exiles.

One day when he was young:
And that's the reason, don't you see,
The blarney's on his tongue!
More than half a century ago the
world was informed that
The bells of Shandon
Sound so sweet and grand on
The pleasant waters
OF the River Lee.
The old chimes are ringing still, and
the iyy-clad tower in which they toll
casts shadow like protecting pail
over the grave of the man who keeps on
whispering, as it we're, to this day the
echoes of the familiar notes in the ears
Of I11sh exiles all over the earth.
Everybody has heard at some time
OF other ''Shandon Bells PLAYED or sung
or whistled. Nearly everybody sets
down the authorship of the quaint old
lilt-kept alive mayhap by the spirit of
home love which it breathes-to the
credit of some obscure ro!lickinG Irish
rhymster. But few know that it was
''Father Prout,'' who cracked bottles
and jokes at the merry board of the
Fracerian circle In London town with
Dickens, Carlyle and Thackeray, who
penned the droll dltty'
And "Father Prout'' himself2 Why
he wasn't himself at all. Many a
stcharacter'' has the Emerald Isle sup
piled this world with, but assuredly
none more interesting ever had the
touch OF The brogue on his tongue than
Frank AIahony, who, as "Father Prout"
in Fraser's Magazine, as "Don Jeremy
Sayonarola" in the appendix Go Dick.
ems pictures from Italy" as the
Upright boy from BlarneY" at the Fras-
erlan symposiums, took rank among
6he brilliant band OF Bohemians who
used to spend their evenings in She be-
ginning of the century in the English
capital after the manner of a famous
body known as the Shamrock Society
Of Philadelphia, which, once upon a
time, paid a visit to Chicago and left
the scent of clover blossoms IN the air
for a munth.
''Father Prout' was in reality
priest, bnt an unttached and unemploy-
ed one. He was described by one of the
scholarly wits of his time as San Irish
man by bietb, an eccleslastic by profess
sion, Journalist by occupation, a COS
mopo ite by habit, whose productions
i'll Fraser, sparkling with wiz, humor,
scholarship and classical Illustration,
at once obtained for the author fCre-
most place among those who were con-
tributing 10 the lighter and more ele-
giant literature of the times.
HIS GENIUS COSMOPOLITAN.
Essentially Hibernian, the wit and
genius of Fathor Mahony were of the
soil which gave him birth, but we're
acuminated and polished in foreign
schools. If the garb was of h0melv
f1ieze, it sparkled with gems from the
mines Of Greece and Rome, and the
Shamrock of Erin aIternated with
classic parsley in the buttonhole. He
invited you to stroll in the groves Of
Blarney, and you found yourself, "un
beknownst," IN those of the academy.
Here is the sketch the Bohemian drew
of himself: "A combination of the
Trian Tyre and the Irish bagpipe; of the
Ionian dialect blending harmoniously
with the brogue; an Irish potato sea-
soned With Attic salt"
Now as to who Father Prout'' was
and whence he came: Francis Sylves-
ter NJ shony was born in 1904, on the
banks of the Lee, within a hop step
and jump of the Lakes Of Killarney
and almost within kissing distance Of
the blarney stone. For twelve years
after he first heard the sound of the
bells,
Whose sounds so wild would
In the days Of childhood
Fling round my cradle
Their magic spells.
He is said to have tf10urished at
Cork. :" growing up there into sbrewd,
briRht-eyed, saucy- faced gossoon pick
ing up with about equal readiness the
itch accent which never altogether for
sock bim and the rudiments Of an
education which later on was to 1ipen
on the continent into brilliant and
comprehensive scholarship. La his
twelfth year he left Ireland for France,
as was the custom In those days for
Irish youths who had to seek, as they
have to-day. for advantages denied
them in their native land. The goal
set for the Irish boy by bio parents was
the priesthood. Their fondest expecta-
tion was to see Frank tsking his place
as = .sso9earth aroonv among the peo-