Kentucky Irish American. (Louisville, Ky.) 1898-1968, 1913-09-13
Decay of the Ballad Due to the
Intellectual Progress i'm
Ireland.
Rev. Father COtter Remembers
Bygone and Happy
Bards.
WHICH WERE HAPPIER DAYS

The Rev. Father Cotter, OF the
Catholic Union and Times, expresses
himself both surprised and pleased
to see long dissertation on Irish
ballad singers in the Literary Digest
of recent date. 1t was occasioned by
an article in T. P.'s Weekly (Lon-
dom by a young Irish poet, Padraic
Colum. with a love for all things
traditional in his old Ireland, Colum
bemoans the passing of the street
singer and clearly gives the reason
therefor. He dates the decay of the
ballad to intellectual progress in Ire
land, as men now read the papers
and do not merely hear their subject
in street song. AS the illiterate
crowd has disappeared, so also has
departed their source of information,
the ballad, whose theme was some
current question of vital moment to
the common people. And still the
ballad singer is to be found; not in
the towns indeed, as of yore, but to-
day in the country, to which the
rews of the world travels slowly. He
fourishes far from the railroad and
steamboat, whose putting smothers
his vocation. We remember, when
we were a boy, the attentive ear that
was given his song by the little in
land village which looked on our
youth and our yearnings. If the
popular parish priest had returned
from Rome, the ballad singer was up
and off with his inspirations. Here
is a sample of one of his couplets
sung to a popular air, that one time
thrilled us:
you're welcome home,
You're one of our own.
You're Father Dan O'Leary."
On these lines the singer dwelt
long and lovingly in repetition, much
to the deiight.-of the rustic deyotees
of His Reverence, whose fame Tor
the nonce was secure.
During the Franco-Prussian war
we we'll remember the munifcence
with which the singer was rewarded
when he inflamed our hearts with the
stanza applauding the fruitless
prowess of poor France against the
adamant of the German forces
"A dozen times
They charged their lines"
We we're ready then, with many
another heroic youth, to HE. to the
land where the attractive name OF
Mcmahon wore the sword of a field
marshal.
When the singer is woman, may
be with a child on her arm, all the
chivalry of ireland bestows upon her
the pennies of the poor and the
bravo of generous temperaments.
The ballad singer is the last echo
o. ancient times, when bards and
chiefs led in shaping Erin's destiny
the one with what Homer would call
the "warbling wire" the other with
the unsullied sword of bravery. We
give our fond farewell to the singers
ballad which, IL it did naught else
pronounced the poetry Of Ireland's
character that literally sang to the
people the prosaic themes OF our
modern headlines. Carolan, the last
Of the bards, has gone and now there
is fast disappearing the feeble
emulator, the street singer, with his
improvised verse, having "all the
Wild freshness of morning" and all
the pure passion of a scholarly and
slintly race. We are often prompted
to ask which were the happier days
those slow hours of other times or
these swift merry-go-rounds of nine
teen Ehirteen?
Napoleon, we believe II was, who
would prefer rather to be the sub
ject of the ballads sentiments than
to be the framer of peoples laws,
for after all sentiment Is a molder
far firmer than the ideas OF legisla-
ton.
All the poets love the ballad.
Longfellow voices the many when he
says, In Hyperion. 81 have a passion
for ballads. They are the gypsy
children OF song, born under green
hedgerows in the leafy lanes and by
paths Of literature in the genial sum
mertime.
In bidding the ballad singer fare
we'll, we are shaking hands with the
lnheritor of the great days OF old. He
Is as far from the conception OF
scott's desolate minstrel
Whose harp. his sole remaining JOY,
Was carried by an orphan boy"
as II is possible to conceive, for the
most happy-go-lucky youth OF Ire
land has followed the devious ways
of the ballad singer. improvising for
Ills nights lodging and, with the lark,