PAT POLAND is baffled by the origins of Cork’s beloved anthem ‘The Banks of My Own Lovely Lee’

 

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. As the older folk, albeit only half-jocosely, would have put it, ‘The country wasn’t half settled’. The fledgling Irish state was barely a decade old. The bitter Civil War, fought between the Pro- and Anti-Treaty factions, was not, unfortunately, a distant memory as most people would have wished, but its toxic aftermath a constant reminder in their lives.

Almost daily, the newspapers carried stories of, yet another, vicious encounter between members of the IRA and General O’Duffy’s ‘Army Comrades’ Association’, more popularly known as the ‘Blueshirts’. Stuck, unhappily, in the middle were the Gardaí, trying to keep clear blue water between both sides.

When in 1932 the newly elected Government under Éamon de Valera perceived that the Guards might be losing the battle, they recruited a hastily organized, and ill-trained, faction that were quickly dubbed the ‘Broy Harriers’, after the Garda Commissioner, Ned Broy.

The cold winds of recession were blowing across the globe and Cork, just as now, was not impervious to their chill factor. By June 1930 almost 6,000 employees at the Ford factory on the Marina had been laid off: a devastating figure. By July 1932 the manufacture of tractors at the Cork plant had ceased.

On the Continent, a certain unknown quantity by the name of Adolf Hitler, installed as Chancellor in June 1933, would not, as it transpired, be content with simply ‘Making Germany Great Again’…
Corkonians needed light-hearted entertainment in spades, and who better to supply it than one of their own, Dublin-based, but Cork -born, Dick Forbes?

Richard ‘Dick’ Forbes, one-time goldminer, tap dancer, railway detective, seaman, sales manager, theatre manager, and laterally, impresario, actor, playwright, and comedian, had discovered his true métier while incarcerated in England.

A guest of His Majesty’s Prisons for his involvement in what was dubbed in Britain the ‘Sinn Féin Rebellion’ in Ireland, he wrote his first pantomime in his prison cell. Upon release, he toured with various companies throughout the land and further afield and was quickly hooked by the ‘footlights’.

By the early 1930s his frequent visits to his native place with his Christmas pantos, concerts, and ‘Revues’ – many with ‘Cork’ built into the title such as ‘Corkshots’, ‘Cork Tips’, and ‘Corkish Delight’ – were eagerly awaited on Leeside.

His resident company included such popular figures as Carl Seren and his Band of Serenaders, ‘The Two Kathleens’ (Irish dancers), John C. Browner (baritone), and Margaret Dempsey, the noted soprano.

The suggestion is that, around this time, Forbes, having sent the words of an obscure poem called ‘The Banks of my Own Lovely Lee’ to local composer and musician, James Charles Shanahan, with the request that music be added to the score, subsequently arranged for the song to be performed in public, for the very first time.
It is intimated that this performance took place at Cork Opera House in December 1933, and the song was delivered by Margaret Dempsey. Later, Pigott’s, the music specialists (afterwards, McCullough Pigott) published the song, and it was registered at the National Library of Ireland in 1935.

The copyright notice names only the composer of the music, James Charles Shanahan. The lyricist is not named.

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