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Thread: Article on Chief O’Neil

  1. #1
    Registered User Ed McGarrigle's Avatar
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    Default Article on Chief O’Neil

    https://www.chicagotribune.com/histo...wtq-story.html

    Not mandolin specific but a good article about Chief O’Neil in the Chicago Tribune by Ron Grossman today
    Sent from my iPad

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    Barn Cat Mandolins Bob Clark's Avatar
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    Default Re: Article on Chief O’Neil

    Hi Ed,

    Fascinating article. Many of us (me included) play music he collected. I, for one, had no idea about his life story. Thanks for sharing this interesting article.

    Best wishes,

    Bob
    Purr more, hiss less. Barn Cat Mandolins Photo Album

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    Registered User Joe Dodson's Avatar
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    Default Re: Article on Chief O’Neil

    I play the tune Chief O'Neill's favorite, but I was under the impression it was an older tune, maybe O'Carolan? Does anyone know if that's a tune this fellow collected?

    I think I'll give a run through before work.

  5. #4

    Default Re: Article on Chief O’Neil

    Quote Originally Posted by Joe Dodson View Post
    I play the tune Chief O'Neill's favorite, but I was under the impression it was an older tune, maybe O'Carolan? Does anyone know if that's a tune this fellow collected?

    I think I'll give a run through before work.
    It's one of the tunes in O'Neill's 1001 (his collection of tunes) so presumably he did collect it. I doubt if it's O'Carolan - to me it doesn't sound like one of his. There's a bit about this tune on thesession.org. In particular the peculiarity of the F natural in the second part is discussed and it is (correctly, I think) pointed out that this is a modern innovation (some suggest Barney McKenna came up with it).

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    two t's and one hyphen fatt-dad's Avatar
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    Default Re: Article on Chief O’Neil

    well done, O'Neil! So great!

    f-d
    ¡papá gordo ain’t no madre flaca!

    '20 A3, '30 L-1, '97 914, 2012 Cohen A5, 2012 Muth A5, '14 OM28A

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    Orrig Onion HonketyHank's Avatar
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    Default Re: Article on Chief O’Neil

    Quote Originally Posted by Joe Dodson View Post
    I play the tune Chief O'Neill's favorite, but I was under the impression it was an older tune, maybe O'Carolan? Does anyone know if that's a tune this fellow collected?

    I think I'll give a run through before work.
    The following is from tunearch.org:

    CHIEF O'NEILL'S FAVORITE (Roga an Taoisaig Uí Niall). AKA - "Chief O'Neill's Fancy." AKA and see "The Flowers of Ardigne," "The Flowers of Adrigole." Irish, Hornpipe. D Major (Moylan, Mulvihill): D Major/D Mixolydian (Brody, Cranitch, Williamson). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. Captain Francis O'Neill was Chief of Police of Chicago in the early years of the 20th Century, and a flute player who compiled several extremely important collections of tunes from the Irish immigrant population who lived and visited the city. He obtained this tune from Edward Cronin, a fiddler originally from County Tipperary, who had no name for it and christened it after the Chief. O'Neill admired Cronin, who was a weaver and a machinest as well as a musician and composer, and obtained many tunes from him, including two originals ("The Bantry" and "Caroline O'Neill's Hornpipe") that he printed in Music of Ireland (1903). O'Neill says: "...he would play for hours at a time such tunes as memory presented, his features while so engaged remaining as set and impassive as the sphinx...It was his open boast that he never forgot nor forgave an injury..."
    FYI, in O'Neill's 1850 it is listed showing an attribution to "Cronin".
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    Registered User Joe Dodson's Avatar
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    Default Re: Article on Chief O’Neil

    Thanks Joe and Hank. Appreciate the information.

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    Registered User Ranald's Avatar
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    Default Re: Article on Chief O’Neil

    I'm with the Chief -- who'd want to solve a crime when there's a rare tune to be chased down? However, folklore or ethnomusicology would have provided a more appropriate profession.
    Robert Johnson's mother, describing blues musicians:
    "I never did have no trouble with him until he got big enough to be round with bigger boys and off from home. Then he used to follow all these harp blowers, mandoleen (sic) and guitar players."
    Lomax, Alan, The Land where The Blues Began, NY: Pantheon, 1993, p.14.

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    Orrig Onion HonketyHank's Avatar
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    Default Re: Article on Chief O’Neil

    While researching the origins of the tune Sgt. Early's Dream, I learned that Chief O'Neill hired quite a few members of the Chicago police force primarily because of their love of and ability to play Irish music - Sgt. Early included, although it seems that he was a pretty good brawler too.
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    Registered User Rob Ross's Avatar
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    Default Re: Article on Chief O’Neil

    It has always appealed to me that O'Neil learned "Off to California" while working as a sheep herder in the mountains of California as a young man.
    Rob Ross
    Apple Valley, Minne-SOH-tah

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    and of course, the 1970 Suzuki-Violin-Sha Bowl Back Taterbug

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  15. #11
    two t's and one hyphen fatt-dad's Avatar
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    Default Re: Article on Chief O’Neil

    I have to wonder if he's referenced in the book, "The Devil in the White City." I'm sure he knew the story!

    f-d
    ¡papá gordo ain’t no madre flaca!

    '20 A3, '30 L-1, '97 914, 2012 Cohen A5, 2012 Muth A5, '14 OM28A

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    Registered User seankeegan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Article on Chief O’Neil

    Copy and pasted from a recent Facebook post by The Shepherd School of Irish Music:

    Assassination, Chief O’Neill, Anarchy, Conspiracy, A Career Destroyed, & A Career Saved

    Today is the 119th anniversary of Chief O’Neill filing charges against Chicago Chief of Detectives Luke Colleran. This original research sheds light on why Chief O’Neill treated the anarchist Emma Goldman so well while she was detained on suspicion of conspiracy to assassinate the president.

    On September 7, 1901 - the day after President William McKinley was shot in Buffalo by anarchist Leon Csolgosz - the lead story of the early edition of the Chicago Tribune (published before news of the assassination broke) was about evidence Chief Francis O’Neill was gathering against Chief of Detectives Luke Colleran. It’s known that Colleran had hoped to become General Superintendent himself, but his career was in serious trouble due to O'Neill's investigation.

    However, on September 10, the anarchist political activist & writer Emma Goldman was taken into custody in Chicago on suspicion of conspiring to assassinate the president. This gave Colleran a huge break: the chance to crack the conspiracy case, which would have given him national prominence.

    In order to foil Colleran’s plans, O'Neill had to sink a potential conspiracy case against Goldman while looking like he had everything completely under control. O'Neill personally interviewed Goldman and quickly concluded that there was no conspiracy. He then intervened in Goldman’s care while in custody, treating her as well as Colleran had treated her badly. He managed to hold off Goldman's extradition to Buffalo (where she would have likely been executed), citing the lack of any evidence against her and telling them, “You must prove your case.”

    President McKinley, who had not immediately succumbed to his wounds, died on September 14. For a moment, it seemed that the subsequent upsurge in hysteria would overwhelm O’Neill’s efforts. The newly sworn-in President, Teddy Roosevelt, fanned the flames, suggesting a global terrorist threat from a shadowy international anarchist network and the need for a “war on anarchism” in concert with European nations. However, O’Neill told the press on September 15 that “it is reassuring to think that we are unable to discover any evidence of a plot.”

    Ultimately, O’Neill prevailed. On September 24, 1901, O’Neill dismissed the conspiracy charge against Goldman and released her. The next day, on September 25th, 1901, he hauled Colleran in front of the Civil Service Commission to answer evidence tampering charges. Luke Colleran was ultimately convicted and sacked, giving him more time to opine about things like the moral turpitude of women cyclists.

    O'Neill's treatment of Emma Goldman is sometimes used to paint him as a liberal or leftist. He was not. In spite of Gov. Altgeld’s ruling nearly ten years prior, O'Neill specifically approved of the executions of 4 labor organizers convicted for their political beliefs by what later Illinois Governor Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne called a "mob in purple and fine linen.” In a 1902 speech, he stated that he regarded Goldman as "one of the most dangerous apostles of anarchy in America" and held her responsible for the McKinley assassination, but reassured his audience that the CPD was more than up to dealing with her, and with anarchists in general:
    "There are still in Chicago a large number of anarchists, but they are no longer defiant. They have been made to feel the effectiveness of the law when the community is aroused, and to all outward appearances, fear the law, if they do not respect it…The red flag is no longer defiantly flaunted in the breeze, and its followers have not forgotten, and probably never will forget, the 4th of May 1886 when they were put to rout by the Chicago Police, and the 11th of November 1887 when their leaders were hanged."


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  18. #13
    Orrig Onion HonketyHank's Avatar
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    Default Re: Article on Chief O’Neil

    I have no doubt that political motivations shaped the actions of the Chicago police force 120 years ago. But I am not burning my copies of O'Neill's books. While interesting, I am not sure what the point the preceding post is, if not political in and of itself.
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