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• Date: 1879
• Sculptor: Dennis B. Sheahan
• Medium & size: Bronze bust, over lifesize.
• Location: Southeast corner of Central Park, near the Pond and 59th Street

As Robert Burns is Scotland’s most beloved poet, Thomas Moore is Ireland’s. Moore set foot on the road to fame and a regular income in 1808, with the publication of the first of 10 volumes of Irish Melodies.

Among the hundred-odd lyrics that Moore set to Irish folk songs is a tribute to a dying young warrior who rips the strings off his harp, because he refuses to let it be used to glorify his nation’s conquerors. “The Minstrel Boy” appeared barely ten years after Moore’s college friend Robert Emmett was executed for treason following an abortive Irish Catholic uprising against the British.

Other well-known poems from the Irish Melodies include “Tis the Last Rose of Summer” and “Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms.”

Moore also composed satirical verse that’s still a pleasure to read. After an unsatisfying visit to President Thomas Jefferson in the rowdy, uncouth city of Washington, he wrote to a friend:

 O’er lake and marsh, through fevers and through fogs,
 Midst bears and yankies, democrats and frogs,
 Thy foot shall follow me, thy heart and eyes
 With me shall wonder, and with me despise!

Thomas Moore went on to write a biography of the dashing young revolutionary Lord Edward Fitzgerald and a two-volume history of Ireland before the British occupation. When he died in 1852, he was acclaimed as an Irish poet and patriot.

By that time, the Great Famine had driven hundreds of thousands of his countrymen to America. More than three quarters of New York’s domestic servants were Irish. So were three quarters of its laborers, including many of those who smashed the rocks, hauled the dirt, laid the drains, and performed the other back-breaking tasks that transformed Central Park from a stinking swamp to a pastoral retreat. The Irish were usually fervent supporters of Tammany Hall leaders such as Boss Tweed, who promised them jobs on public construction projects such as the Park.

Like most immigrants under a free political system, the Irish soon rose from lower to middle class. In New York, they gravitated to the police and fire departments, which are still heavily Irish. That’s why, if you pass by St. Patrick’s Cathedral when the funeral of a fireman or policeman is in progress, you’ll often hear the mournful strains of the “Minstrel Boy.”

This sculpture was dedicated by the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick to mark the centennial of Moore’s birth.

More

• On “Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms”, see this post.
• For the story of Central Park in the 1850s-1870s, see my book Central Park: The Early Years.
• For early images of Central Park, see the pages on this site for through 1860, 1861-1865, and 1866-1870.
• In Getting More Enjoyment from Sculpture You Love, I demonstrate a method for looking at sculptures in detail, in depth, and on your own. Learn to enjoy your favorite sculptures more, and find new favorites. Available on Amazon in print and Kindle formats. More here.
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