When you think of Irish traditional music, you probably don’t think of songs like “Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs. Murphys Chowder“ “Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly”, or “When Irish Eyes are Smiling“, and you certainly don’t think of vaudeville or Bing Crosby.
But while these songs were written in the streets of America, not the green fields of Irelands, they are a part of the Irish-American journey.
Around the time of the American Civil War, Irish immigrants began pouring into America, fleeing the hunger and devastation of the Irish Famine. 2 Million Irish immigrants came to America between 1840 and 1860; by 1850, 26 percent of New York City – 133,000 people - had been born in Ireland.
At the same time, Americans were purchasing and learning to play pianos in record numbers. And in 1851 Stephen Foster, the descendant of Irish immigrants from County Derry, wrote “The Old Folks at Home”, a song that sold over 100,000 copies when it was published. Foster essentially created an American popular music publishing industry that would become known as Tin Pan Alley.
From the late 1800’s thru the early 20 th century, New York’s Tin Pan Alley was dominated by Jewish and Irish entrepreneurs and performers, who celebrated the rich American emigrant stew. Composers and producers like the Irish American team of Harrigan & Hart were creating an American popular theatre that was a mix of music, theatre and comedy that would become vaudeville, burlesque and eventually silent films.
The Irish songs and ballads that came out of Tin Pan Alley reflected the new lives the Irish were making in America, and the ways in which America was re-making the Irish. They were filled with humor, pain, longing and ambition, all at once.
There was the longing and loss of the romanticized Ireland and loved ones left behind, heard in songs like “Danny Boy”. As Historian & Musician Mick Moloney says “The immigrants that came to start a new life in America, they came from drama. They weren’t going to talk about the real Ireland, the place they were escaping. They wanted to present images of wholeness and happiness, a place of beauty and innocence where everything was good…”
But the Irish/Americans of the enormous St Patrick’s Day Parade, of the vaudeville stage, of coal mines and social justice and labor unions, of ward politics and the police...the gregarious, colorful Irish, full of song & story, as well as growing ambition, were reflected in Irish-American songs like “Muldoon The Solid Man” and “Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly” This was a new story, a celebration of the new Irish in a new land of possibilities that they were helping to build.
So the next time you hear “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling”, take a moment to honor the Irish American journey and the hard-earned smile in those Irish eyes.
