Peadar Kearney - Songs and Legacy

Songs and Legacy

Kearney's songs were highly popular with the Volunteers (which later became the IRA) in the 1913-22 period. Most popular was "The Soldier's Song". Kearney penned the original English lyrics in 1907 and his friend and musical collaborator Patrick Heeney composed the music. The lyrics were published in 1912 and the music in 1916. In 1926, four years after the formation of the Free State, the Irish translation, "Amhrán na bhFiann", was adopted as the national anthem, replacing God Save Ireland. Kearney was not paid royalties for his contribution to the song.

Other well-known songs by Kearney include "Down by the Glenside (The Bold Fenian Men)", "The Tri-coloured Ribbon", "Down by the Liffey Side", "Knockcroghery" (about the village of Knockcroghery) and "Erin Go Bragh" (Erin Go Bragh was the text on the Irish national flag before the adoption of the tricolour).

Kearney's sister Kathleen was the mother of Irish writers Brendan Behan and Dominic Behan, both of whom were also republicans and songwriters. Brendan Behan was in prison when Kearney died, and was refused permission to attend his funeral. In a letter to Kearney's son, Pearse, he said, "my Uncle Peadar was the one, outside my own parents, who excited the admiration and love that is friendship."

In 1957 his nephew Seamus de Burca (or Jimmy Bourke son of Kearney's sister, Margaret) published a biography of Kearney, The Soldier’s Song: The Story of Peadar Ó Cearnaigh. In 1976 De Burca also published Kearney's letters to his wife written during his internment in 1921 were published as My Dear Eva ... Letters from Ballykinlar Internment Camp, 1921. A wall plaque on the west side of Dorset Street commemorates his birth there.