~ Finnegans Wake – A Prescriptive Guide ~

Finnegan’s Wake (Gourfain)

In the preceding article of A Prescriptive Guide to Finnegans Wake, I pointed out how the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth paragraphs of the book retell the story of the ballad of Finnegan’s Wake, the song from which Joyce adapted the title of the novel. Before we take a closer look at the song, let’s listen to a performance of it by the legendary band The Dubliners (who borrowed their name from Joyce’s collection of short stories):

The Dubliners: Finnegan’s Wake

Finnegan’s Wake the song is a bit like Finnegans Wake the book: it’s a little different every time you hear it. No two singers seem to agree on the words, or even the music.

Tim Finnegan’s Fall (Lord)

The Origins of Finnegan’s Wake

The origins of the song are obscure. No one really knows who wrote the lyrics, or who composed the music, or when—though opinions on these matters are not lacking. The song dates back to the middle of the 19th century—allegedly—but even that is uncertain.

It was probably written in New York in the early 1850s or the early 1860s. At that time one of the most popular forms of public entertainment was music hall, a type of variety show featuring popular songs, comedy routines and specialty acts. Irish songs, both comic and sentimental, were in great vogue and there was no shortage of songsmiths capable of turning out a passable imitation of the real thing. With an eye to the amateur market, those that became popular were usually published in simple arrangements for voice and piano. The majority of these had short lives on the stage before being consigned to the dusty shelves of music libraries.

The Library of Congress’s Historic Sheet Music Collection, 1800 to 1922 has thousands of these popular songs online. Browsing through the collection, I find that most of them I have never heard of. Among the Irish—or pseudo-Irish—songs and dances in this collection are such rarities as:

• Woods of Green Erin
• The Poor Man’s Bride
• Willie Sullivan’s Return
• Norah McShane
• I’ll Look for Thee, Mary
• Land of Sweet Erin
• Blue-Eyed Mary
• The Irish Washerwoman
• St Patrick’s Day
• Biddy McShane
• Kitty Neil
• The Poor Irish Boy
• Dear Land of My Fathers
• Katy Darling
• Shylie Avourneen
• Paddy Boghree, The Irish Tiff
• Kathleen of Kildare
• Erin Weeps Forsaken
• The Lament of an Irish Mother
• Widow Machree

And this is just a small selection. Restricting the search parameters to the years 1850-59 and including the word Irish in the title or description returned 112 items!

John Brougham

The Fine Ould Irish Gintleman

Another Irish-American comic song of this era cannot be overlooked. The Fine Ould Irish Gintleman, written and sung by John Brougham, tells a tale in its last two verses that is remarkably similar to the plot of Finnegan’s Wake. Brougham’s song was first published in Boston in 1845, by George P Reed, which means that it probably preceded the composition of Finnegan’s Wake.

Brougham was a Dublin-born actor and dramatist. He first made a name for himself on the stage in London, before moving to New York, where he wrote several successful melodramas and managed a number of theatres. His song, The Fine Ould Irish Gintleman, was a parody of Henry Russell’s The Fine Old English Gentleman of 1835, which celebrated the good old days when everyone knew his place. The success of this song—perhaps the most popular of nineteenth century broadside ballads (Hepburn 77)—led to a slew of imitations and parodies:

• The Fine Young English Gentleman
• The Fine Old Color’d Gentleman
• The Fine Old Dutch Gentleman
• The Fine Young German Gentleman
• The Fat Old Parish Vestryman
• The Old English Lady
• The Old English Publican
• The Old English Constable
• The Fine Old English Pawnbroker
• The Fine Old English Labourer
• The Fine Old Border Squatter

Even Charles Dickens got in on the act, writing his own satirical celebration of those good old days: The Fine Old English Gentleman, New Version.

The original source of all these ballads, including Russell’s, was The Queen’s Old Courtier, also known as The Old and Young Courtier, an anonymous 17th-century ballad which contrasts the reign of James I with the good old days of Good Queen Bess (Elizabeth I). This song was revised and given a new lease of life in the middle of the 18th century by Joseph Vernon, who sang it in a production of Thomas Shadwell’s play The Squire of Alsatia. But Russell’s revival of 1835 proved to be the most lasting.

The ballad is to be chanted, ad libitum, upon one note, except the final syllable of each stanza, and the burden “Like an old Courtier” &c. (Chappell 300)

The Queen’s Old Courtier (Harmony by G A MacFarren)

Russell’s revival of 1835 replaced this improvised chant with a proper melody, and most of the imitations and parodies of Russell’s song retain his music. The two versions can be compared in C H Purday’s edition. Brougham reverts to the original format for the stanzas, stretching out the lines of his parody to ridiculous lengths, to great comic effect. His burden, or refrain, however, is the same as Russell’s:

The Fine Ould Irish Gintleman

I’ll sing you a fine ould song made by a fine ould Paddy’s pate,
Of a fine Ould Irish Gintleman who had the devil a taste of an estate,
Except a fine old patch of pitaty’s that he liked exceedin’ly to ate
For they were beef to him and mutton too and barring a red herring or a rusty rasher of bacon now and thin almost ev’ry other sort of mate.
Yet this Fine Ould Irish Gintleman was one of the rale ould stock.

His cabin walls were cover’d o’er with fine ould Irish mud,
Because he couldn’t afford to have any paper hangings, and between you and me he wouldn’t give a pin for them if he could.
And just as proud as Julious Sayzer or Alixander the great, this independent ragamuffin stood
With a glass of fine ould Irish whiskey in his fist which he’s decidedly of opinion will do a mighty dale of good
To this fine ould Irish Gintleman, All of the rale ould stock.

Now dis fine ould Irish gintleman wore mighty curious clothes,
Tho’ for comfort I’ll be bail that they’d bate any of your fashionable beaux,
For when the sun was very hot the gintle wind right through his ventilation garments most beautifully blows,
And he’s niver troubled with any corns and I’ll tell you why, because he despises the wakeness of wearing anything as hard as leather on his toes,
Yet this fine ould Irish gintleman was one of the rale ould stock.

Now this fine ould Irish gintleman has a mighty curious knack,
Of flourishing a tremendous great shillaly in his hand and letting it drop down with a most uncompromising whack,
So of most superiour shindies you may take your oath if you ever happen to be called upon for it he very nearly never had a lack,
And it’s very natural and not at all surprising to suppose that the fine ould Irish mud was well acquainted with the back
Of this Fine Ould Irish Gintleman, All of the rale ould stock.

This fine ould Irish gintleman he was once out upon a spree,
And as many a fine ould Irish gintleman has done and more betoken will do to the end of time he got about as dhrunk as he could be,
His senses was complately mulvathered and the consequence was that he could neither hear nor see,
So they thought he was stone dead and gone intirely, So the best thing they could do would be to have him waked and buried dacintly,
Like a Fine Ould Irish Gintleman All of the rale ould stock.

So this fine ould Irish gintleman he was laid out upon a bed,
With half a dozen candles at his heels and two or three dozen more or less about his head,
But when the whiskey bottle was uncorked he couldn’t stand it any longer so he riz right up in bed,
And when sich mighty fine stuff as that is goin about says he you don’t think I’d be such a soft headed fool as to be dead,
Oh this fine ould Irish Gintleman it was mighty hard to kill.

Clearly, the final two stanzas provided the creator of Finnegan’s Wake with the gist of his tale. There are also a few details in the earlier stanzas—the flourishing of the Shillelagh with an uncompromising whack, and the love of fine ould Irish whiskey, for example—that also found their way into Finnegan’s Wake.

Finigans Wake (1854 or 1864?)

Finigans Wake

Like The Fine Ould Irish Gintleman, the earliest version of Finnegan’s Wake that I have managed to track down is in the Lester S Levy Sheet Music Collection in the Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries . There it is listed as Finigans Wake—without the apostrophe! A typo, of course, but a mighty prescient one.

The music was arranged for piano and voice by John Durnal, and published in New York in 1854 by John J Daly. I don’t know who John Durnal was, other than a prolific arranger of the time. Certainly, he was regularly hired by John J Daly. He is sometimes credited with the composition of Finigan’s Wake, words and music. Personally, I don’t believe he was ever more than an arranger of popular songs. But who knows? His name crops up in connection with many Irish, pseudo-Irish and American songs of the time, usually ones published by John J Daly. See, for example, the following at the Hathi Trust Digital Library:

• When Johnny Comes Marching Home
• Larry O’Brien
• Green Little Shamrock
• Limerick Races
• The Wild Irish Boy
• Hurrah for the Days of Old

It is interesting that some of these have Arranged for the Piano by J. Durnal or Arranged by John Durnal, while others have Music by J. Durnal. In those cases where the lyrics are specifically attributed to an author, it is never Durnal. John Durnal was obviously a composer and arranger, not a writer. His possible contributions to the music of Finnegans Wake will have to be investigated further, but I do not think he wrote the words of the song.

A word of warning, though. Although the title page of Finigans Wake has the date 1854 (and this is the date under which it is catalogued in the Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries), the second page of the score is dated 1864! Also, the six songs arranged by John Durnal in the Hathi Trust Digital Library are all dated between 1863 and 1867, and the three songs arranged by him in the Library of Congress bear the dates 1863, 1865 and 1876. So there is a very good chance that 1864 is the correct date. This means that this may not be the original version of the song.

Dan Bryant

Finigan’s Wake

Finnegan’s Wake was also published in New York in 1864 by William A Pond & Co under the name Finigan’s Wake. This version was performed by the minstrel Dan Bryant (Dan O’Neill)—“with enthusiastic applause”—in an arrangement by Charles Glover. During the American Civil War, Finigan’s Wake and Lanigan’s Ball were staples of the Bryant Minstrels, a black-and-white minstrel troupe founded by two brothers, Jerry and Dan O’Neill, from upstate New York. Bryant’s version differs slightly from Durnal’s in both its lyrics and its music.

The arranger of the Bryant version, Charles William Glover, was an English composer. He is generally credited with the composition of the music for the popular Irish ballad The Rose of Tralee. He died in 1863, shortly before the publication of his arrangement of Finigan’s Wake.

This version of the song also appeared in Beadle’s Dime Song Book No. 13, which was published in 1864. The publishers, Beadle and Company, acknowledge “Wm. A. Pond & Co.” as the “owners of the copyright” (Beadle 6).

In 1864, another New York music publisher, D S Holmes of Brooklyn, published Finigan’s Wake in an arrangement for solo piano by L L Parr. No words are included and no information is given concerning the source of the song.

Tim Finigan’s Wake

Another man commonly credited with the composition of Finnegan’s Wake is John F Poole. His version of the ballad appeared under the title Tim Finigan’s Wake in a song collection of 1867. The air to which the words are to be sung is identified as The French Musician, but only the lyrics are printed.

John F Poole was born in Dublin in 1833 (Fields 44) or 1835 (Meehan 69) and emigrated to America when he was twelve. His career in the theatre and music hall only began in 1863. He made a name for himself as a prolific writer of songs and comic skits. He was also the manager of several theatres in New York, including for a time the Olympic Theater on Broadway (Fields 87). His best known work is the serious protest song No Irish Need Apply.

Poole is alleged to have written the words to Tim Finigan’s Wake for Tony Pastor, an impresario and variety performer who was so successful in his day that he is now remembered as the Father of Vaudeville. Poole died at his home in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, in 1893. Curiously, his death from dropsy was occasioned by a fall from a ladder! (Meehan 69)

In 1976, the Joyce scholar Jane S Meehan identified Poole as the creator of Finnegan’s Wake. Her article, Tim Finigan’s Wake appeared in a 1976 issue of A Wake Newslitter and is an excellent source for the details of Poole’s life and career. In her researches, Meehan did discover the connection between Finnegan’s Wake and Brougham’s The Fine Ould Irish Gintleman, but the Durnal and Bryant/Glover arrangements escaped her notice. Her article can now be downloaded (with the rest of this valuable Wakean journal) from JoyceTools, Ian Gunn’s wonderful online tribute to the late Clive Hart. It was only when researching Meehan that I came across this treasure trove of Joycean delights. I warmly recommend it.

I suppose we can forgive Meehan her error, considering the era in which she carried out her research. Today, thanks to the Internet and Google, we can say with certainty that John F Poole did not create Finnegan’s Wake. Poole was born in 1833 or 1835, and Tony Pastor in 1837. Poole was only nineteen or twenty-one and working as a clerk when John Durnal’s arrangement of Finigans Wake came out in 1854—if, indeed, that is the correct year. Significantly, the 1864 edition of Tony Pastor’s songbook—Tony Pastor’s Complete Budget of Comic Songs— does not include Tim Finigan’s Wake, even though this collection was edited by John F Poole. Tim Finigan’s Wake is, however, in the 1867 edition—Tony Pastor’s Book of 600 Comic Songs. I think it is safe to conclude that sometime between 1864 and 1867 Poole simply rewrote the Durnal or Bryant/Glover version of the song. An examination of the lyrics suggests that it was the latter version of 1864 that Poole reworked.

Even if it turns out that the Bryant/Glover version was published in 1863 before the Durnal version, that still anticipates the Poole/Pastor version. (As we shall see in the next article, the lyrics of Poole’s version also suggest that he was reworking an earlier version of the song.)

Obituary of John F Poole

Later Versions

Finnegan’s Wake has retained its popularity to the present day. Since the 1860s, it has been republished countless times in countless places and has undergone several minor alterations, though the basic tale of Tim Finnegan’s death and resurrection by whiskey has been preserved. The success of the song in the hand’s of Tony Pastor ensured that its fame would spread quickly—and it did. As early as 1866, the Finnigan’s Wake Polka was published in Adelaide, Australia, by G L Egremont-Gee. It was composed by a local clarinettist and bandmaster, Theodor Heydecke, and arranged for piano by his English friend George Loder. Heydecke died in 1867 and Loder in 1868 (Temperley 164, 165).

Another early work to cash in on the popularity of Tony Pastor and John F Poole was the Tim Finigan’s Wake Songster: Comprising Many of the Most Humorous Irish and Other Racey Comic Songs, Interspersed with Beautiful Sentimental Ballads Adapted to Popular Airs. This small collection was published in New York by Robert M de Witt in 1867. It was 72 pages long and sold for 10 ¢.

In 1870, the Complete Catalogue of Sheet Music and Musical Works listed two songs relevant to our inquiry (Board of Music Trade 30):

• Finigan’s Wake, Glover.
• Finnigan’s Wake, Miller.

Who is this Miller to whom the second song is attributed? Possibly Harry Miller, who arranged many popular songs of that era.

John F Poole’s words also appeared in Patrick J Kenedy’s The Universal Irish Song Book, which came out in New York in 1884. Outside Ireland, Poole’s version and title remained popular to the end of the century. Take, for example, Tim Finigan’s Wake, a broadside published by Henry J Wehmann in 1899.

By the beginning of the 20th century the song had been claimed by the Irish as though it were a native son come home from the States. It was probably in Ireland that the spelling Finnegan’s Wake became established, as that was the commonest spelling of the surname in the Ould Sod. In the Census of 1901, the following results were returned:

Spelling	Number of Records
Finnegan	2158
Finegan	1297
Finnigan	520
Finigan	159

Finally, one might briefly mention a few other popular songs of the day that involve that quintessential part of Irish social life, the wake:

• The Dan McGinness Wake
• Mike McCarthy’s Wake
• The Wake of the Absent
• The Wake of William Orr
• The Bridal Wake
• An Iligant Wake
• Pat Malone Forgot that He Was Dead
• Granny O’Reilly’s Wake
• Mulligan’s Wake

What relationship, if any, these may have had with Finnegan’s Wake I leave to the curious-minded to look into.

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References

• Beadle and Company, Beadle’s Dime Song Book No. 13, Beadle & Company, New York (1864)
• Board of Music Trade, Complete Catalogue of Sheet Music and Musical Works, The Board of Music Trade, New York (1870)
• John Brougham, The Fine Ould Irish Gintleman, George P Reed, Boston (1845)
• William Chappell, Popular Music of the Olden Time, Volume 1, Cramer, Beale & Chappell, London (1858?)
• Armond Fields, Tony Pastor, Father of Vaudeville, McFarland & Company, Incorporated, Jefferson NC (2007)
• James G Hepburn, A Book of Scattered Leaves: Poetry of Poverty in Broadside Ballads of Nineteenth-Century England, Bucknell University Press, Lewisburg PA (2000)
• James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, The Viking Press, New York (1958, 1966)
• Patrick J Kenedy, The Universal Irish Song Book, P J Kenedy, New York (1884)
• Jane S Meehan, Tim Finigan’s Wake, A Wake Newslitter, Volume 13, Number 4, pp 69-73, University of Essex, English Department, Colchester (1976), Creative Commons - Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
• Tony Pastor, Tony Pastor’s Book of Six Hundred Comic Songs and Speeches, Dick & Fitzgerald, New York (1867)
• Thomas Percy, Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, Volume 2, Swan Sonnenschein & Co, London (1891)
• Danis Rose, John O’Hanlon, The Restored Finnegans Wake, Penguin Classics, London (2012)
• Nicholas Temperley (editor), Musicians of Bath and Beyond: Edward Loder (1809-65) and His Family, The Boydell Press, Woodbridge (2016)

Video Credits

• The Dubliners: Finnegan’s Wake, Standard YouTube License, Fair Use

Image Credits

• Finnegan’s Wake: Woodcut, Peter Gourfain (artist), © 2018 The Old Print Shop, Fair Use
• Tim Finnegan’s Fall: Finnegans Wake, The Folio Society, © 2014 John Vernon Lord, Fair Use
• John Brougham: Wikimedia Commons, Matthew Brady (photographer), Library of Congress, Brady-Handy Photograph Collection, Public Domain
• The Queen’s Old Courtier: William Chappell, G A MacFarren, Public Domain
• The Fine Ould Irish Gintleman: Lester S Levy Sheet Music Collection, Public Domain
• Finigans Wake (1854): Lester S Levy Sheet Music Collection, Public Domain
• Dan Bryant: Wikimedia Commons, American Minstrel Show Collection, Harvard University, Public Domain
• C W Glover: IMSLP, Petrucci Music Library, Public Domain
• John F Poole: Public Domain
• Obituary of John F Poole: New York Dramatic Mirror, 29 July 1893, Public Domain

Useful Resources

• The Traditional Tune Archive
• Joyce Tools
• FWEET
• The James Joyce Scholars’ Collection
• FinnegansWiki
• Annotated Finnegans Wake (with Wakepedia)