| Francis O'Neill | |
|---|---|
Chief Francis O'Neill, CPD |
|
| Born | August 28, 1848 Tralibane, Co. Cork, Ireland |
| Died | January 26, 1936 (Aged 87) Chicago, Illinois, USA |
| Rank | Superintendent |
| Commands held | Chicago Police Department |
Francis O'Neill (August 28, 1848–January 26, 1936) was an Irish-born American police officer and collector of Irish traditional music.
O'Neill was born in Tralibane, near Bantry, County Cork. At an early age he heard the music of local musicians, among them Peter Hagarty, Cormac Murphy and Timothy Dowling. At the age of 16, he became a cabin boy on an English merchant vessel. On a voyage to New York, he met Anna Rogers, a young emigrant whom he later married in Bloomington, Illinois. The O'Neills moved to Chicago, and in 1873 O'Neill became a Chicago policeman. He rose through the ranks quickly, eventually serving as the Chief of Police from 1901 to 1905. He had the rare distinction, in a time when political "pull" counted for more than competence, of being re-appointed twice to the position by two different mayors.
During his time as chief, O'Neill recruited many traditional Irish musicians into the police force, including Patrick O'Mahony, James O'Neill, Bernard Delaney, John McFadden and James Early. He also collected tunes from some of the major performers of the time including Patsy Touhey, who regularly sent O'Neill wax cylinders and visited him in Chicago. He also collected tunes from a wide variety of printed sources.
O'Neill retired from the police force in 1905. After that, he devoted much of his energy to publishing the music he had collected. His musical works include:
Chief O'Neill's life and work was the subject of a major television documentary broadcast by TG4, the Irish language television channel in its Na Bailitheoirà Ceoil (The Music Collectors) on 18 March 2009 and viewable (with English language subtitles) for 30 days on its broadband webcast www.tg4.tv
In 2008, Northwestern University Press issued Captain O'Neill's Sketchy Recollections of an Eventful Life in Chicago, a non-musical memoir edited by Ellen Skerrett and Mary Lesch (a descendant of O'Neill), with a foreword by Nicholas Carolan of the Irish Traditional Music Archive. Carolan himself wrote a musical biography of O'Neill, A Harvest Saved: Francis O'Neill and Irish Music in Chicago, which was published in Ireland by Ossian in 1997.