Shaun O'Nolan
storyteller, actor, songwriter, piper; commercial recordings exist
b. Barraderry, Kiltegan, County Wicklow, Ireland April 22, 1872
d. Manhattan, New York City Oct. 2, 1945
William F. Hanafin, Michael C. Hanafin, and Sean O'Nolan, circa 1900 [perhaps closer to 1910], Box 1, Folder 3, William F. and Michael C. Hanafin Family Papers, IM.M143.2005, John J. Burns Library, Boston College.
Published in the Hartford [CT] Courant Feb. 12, 1931 p. 5 The photo may have been taken many years before.
"The Boys of the County Cork" Words and Music By Shaun O'Nolan. Published by Tara Music Co. 152 West 42nd Street New York, N.Y. Copyright 1946. Image from Bill Ochs, 2016. I have failed to find the copyright holder, if one exists. Please contact me if you represent the owner.
Shaun O'Nolan molded himself into an entertainer. He was not a great piper or singer, yet more than simply a comedian. Perhaps it would be best to think of him as a storyteller and songwriter.
O'Nolan was born John Nolan in County Wicklow, Ireland in 1872. His parents were Mathew and Catherine Nolan (sometimes spelled Nowlan). He performed as John Nolan until about 1912. By 1917 he was consistently using the name Shaun O'Nolan in public life.
In 1930 O'Nolan told a newspaper columnist that from age ten to twenty-two he was a jockey and raced on "on every big track in Ireland." He then became a member of the Dublin Fire Brigade for four years and emigrated to Boston in 1903. He was a member of the Boston Police force for nine years and resigned about 1919. Little of this is verifiable.
In documents associated with becoming a US citizen O'Nolan swore that he emigrated in 1898 and took up residence in Boston. I have found no evidence he was a policeman. Census, immigration and marriage documents give his occupation as clerk or bartender.
O'Nolan married Celia Moran, born in Leitrim, in Somerville, Massachusetts in 1899. They had at least six children.
He is first mentioned as a performer in Boston, 1904-10, playing pipes, mostly for dancers. He associated with other Irish musicians in the Boston area, in particular the Hanafin brothers, William and Michael. Some regarded the Hanafins as the best of the Boston Irish musicians. In 1911 is the first mention of an engagement in which, besides performing on the pipes, "He also sang several of his own songs, for Mr. Nolan is a poet as well as musician."
By 1916 he was styling himself as the "Wicklow Piper." He appears in plays, at least one of which featured his original songs. Most of his gigs were in the Boston area, some few in neighboring states. In March 1918, at a time when US soldiers were being sent to France in World War I, he played at a concert for inmates of the State Prison, Charlestown, Massachusetts:
- The Wicklow Piper, Shaun O'Nolan, with his formidable-looking Irish bagpipe and his Irish peasant's picturesque costume, said in introducing the instrument: "It is the most abused instrument in the world. You take an Irishman or a Scotchman and he'd walk forty-one miles to hear one played." Then Mr. Nolan's consummate art made his audience, here, feel willing to walk forty-one miles to hear an Irish bagpipe under his manipulation. His encore he announced as: "An old Irish war air, one of the oldest numbers I know of." It was just such a piece as history tells us used to rouse all that martial valor of the Gael-a weird, dissonant, yet, functionally, a masterpiece. An original recitation by Mr. Nolan of an aged mother's parting with her son, on the occasion of his country's call, deserves emphatic praise because of its freedom from mawkish sentiment that is too often the fault with such pieces.'
He took part in a local production of the play "Kerry Gow," 1921, and was described as "the Wicklow piper, well known locally because of the many Boston presentations of his witty Irish songs and quaint piper tunes at meetings of Irish organizations."
Burns Library, Boston College, has in its collection a business card for Shaun O'Nolan, probably circa 1925:
- The "Wicklow Piper"
Staging and Directing Amateur Entertainments a Specialty
An Irish Evening By Shaun O'Nolan's Irish Players and Concert Artists
In the mid-1920s O'Nolan begins to work further afield. He visits New York City in late 1925 and records for Columbia Graphophone Co. His first known radio broadcast, for station WLWL in December, is in NYC.
Columbia releases at least four 78 rpm records, most of it pipe playing and some with piano accompaniment. The last was recorded in February 1926. O'Nolan recorded many times thereafter, as late as 1931, but all were vocals, no more piping. These later recordings were mostly songs of his own composition, or traditional melodies for which he had written or modified the words. A couple of recordings are recitations. Many of his recordings can be found on the Internet.
By 1929 he begins to shift his performances to New York City. For two years running he was the star attraction at the Irish Festival at the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer, Manhattan. This was apparently a stage show which ran four weeks in 1929, five weeks in 1930.
O'Nolan's wife Celia died in Boston, January 1931. He moved to New York City shortly thereafter where he lived for the rest of his life.
Most of O'Nolan's gigs in the 1930s were as part of a stage show, many of them sponsored by church or Irish-American social organizations. In some he and his players would present a play or skit: "Christmas at Donovan's" and "Willy Reilly and His Colleen Bawn" for examples.
Once in New York City he began to be associated with music stores. First the Irish Music House, and later the Shamrock Music Store at 1334 Third Avenue, near Seventy-sixth Street, Manhattan. This was O'Nolan's residential address for most of the time he lived in New York. In July-August 1931 he travelled to Ireland with Mrs. Teresa Haskins, a widow and the proprietor of the Shamrock Music Store. He took along with him "one of the most expensive of moving picture cameras with which he will film all the places of scenic and historic interests in each of the 32 counties. These he will later use in connection with the shows which he will stage during the coming fall and winter in New York." A remembrance of O'Nolan says "He showed the pictures in many an auditorium in the United States."
Announcements of engagements began to fall off in the late 1930s. He continued to work at the music store, perhaps in a "managerial capacity." During the Christmas season, 1941, he gave an impromptu reading of one of his compositions. Newspaper columnist Helen Savage wrote "Despite the number of times we've witnessed the phenomenon, it is still a source of wonder and delight to us when SEAN O'NOLAN holds a group of people spellbound with a few simple words."
O'Nolan was struck and killed by an automobile, a hit and run, on October 2, 1945. He was 73 years old. The accident took place in the same block as his residence, 76th St. and 3rd Ave. He and wife Celia are buried at Holy Cross Cemetery, Malden, MA. His name on the stone is John J. Nolan.
O'Nolan's piping recordings are enthusiastic and imprecise. Sometimes he has trouble keeping pace with an accompanist. There are detached notes and triplets but his style is not quite all-in "American" piping like Pat Touhey or Barney Delaney.
As singer O'Nolan straddled a line between your uncle singing before the fireplace and a trained concert singer. Mick Moloney described him as one "who sang in a hearty rough country style with a minimum of finesse but plenty of theatrical enthusiasm." He seemed completely at ease before the microphone.
O'Nolan wrote much verse and many songs. Most of his work has been forgotten, but a few songs are still occasionally heard. Mick Moloney recorded "Me Uncle Dan McCann," 2002. Margaret Barry recorded "If You Ever Go Over To Ireland" in 1955.
His songwriting efforts had something to do with a folk tradition, and it is unclear if he has gotten proper credit for things he has written, or conversely, that he has been too generously credited with songs which have a traditional or unknown source. In the same remembrance mentioned above, author Josephine Patricia Smith wrote "Strangely enough, Shaun, like too many of our Irish song writers, neglected to attend to the very important detail of copyright, and as a consequence received no financial compensation for his authorship."
Finally, the memory of old-timer Michael T. Scanlon, in a letter from 1974: "Yes I know most of the older generation [of pipers] you mentioned: Mike Carney, Mike Gallagher, Eddie Mullaney, Dominick Doyle, and Billy Hannafin of Boston; not forgetting the one and only Lean O'Nolan, who loved the things, and who could do anything with them except play them."
Thank you to J. J. Woods for providing O'Nolan's birth date and place.
Selected References
- Representative recordings:
"Gilda Ray Hornpipe" pipes and piano, Columbia 33085-F, 1925
https://archive.org/details/ShaunONolanGildaRayHornpipe
- "Back to Donegal" vocal, piano, fiddle, drum, clarinet? Regal, 1925 [This song was recorded by Bing Crosby circa 1945, Steve Graham credited as writer.]
https://www.itma.ie/digital-library/sound/cid-232057
"Central Council of Irish County Clubs Almost Unanimous in Condemning Irish Play
..." ["a poet as well as musician."] Boston [MA] Sunday Post Oct. 22, 1911 p. C column 5
NewspaperArchive.com
"Dan Flannery's Ireland Bookings" [trip to Ireland with movie camera] NY Advocate July 18, 1931 p. 7 column 6
New York NY Irish American Advocate 1930-1931 - 0919.pdf
"Danced to Bagpipes." Boston [MA] Globe May 12, 1905 p. 8 column 2
Access Newspaper Archive
"Irish Night" Concert By W. G. F. The Mentor [a monthly magazine produced by the inmates of the Mass. State Prison, Charlestown] Vol. 18 No. 6 April 1918 pp. 249-52
Google Books
https://books.google.com/books?id=X3hIAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA249&lpg=PA249&dq=%22shaun+o'nolan%22&source=bl&ots=1dqLBEuFlZ&sig=HaIocce-kr96mHllRGuqJORKx-c&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjmjO3x0rDeAhWtUt8KHcSFAPQ4ChDoATAJegQIBxAB#v=onepage&q=%22shaun%20o'nolan%22&f=false
Jolliffe, Maureen "Kerry Long Ago" [remembering songs attributed to O'Nolan] Clann O Nuallain Newsletter No. 3 May 1997 p. 4 accessed Nov. 2018
http://nolanfamilies.org/newsletter/TheNolan-03.pdf link not working Oct. 2021
"Junction and West Cambridge" [earliest mention as the Wicklow piper] Cambridge [MA] Chronicle June 10, 1916 p. 6 column 4
Cambridge MA Chronicle 1916 06-10 Page 6.pdf
' "Kerry Gow" at Arlington' Boston [MA] Post March 29, 1921 p. 15 column 8
Access Newspaper Archive
Moloney, Mick "Far from the Shamrock Shore" [liner notes] CD Shanachie 2002
"News, Notes and Comment By P. J. Callan." [as a jockey, policeman] NY Advocate July 28, 1930 p. 9 column 3
New York NY Irish American Advocate 1930-1931 - 0371.pdf
O'Nolan, Shaun business card
John J. Burns Library, Boston College.
"Piper O'Nolan of Boston Here." [radio broadcast, record company] NY Advocate Nov. 28, 1925 p. 7 column 3
New York NY Irish American Advocate 1925-1927 - 0465.pdf
Savage, Helen "Along the Shamrock Stem" NY Advocate Jan. 3, 1942 p. 6 column 1
New York NY Irish American Advocate 1940-1942 - 0904.pdf
Scanlon, Michael T. letter The Uilleann Piper vol. 1 no. 3 June 30, 1974 pp. 2-3
https://pipers.ie/source/media/?galleryId=1037&mediaId=26433
"St. Vincent's Irish Festival Program for Second Week" ["Christmas at Donovan's"] NY Advocate Oct. 25, 1930 p. 9 column 4
New York NY Irish American Advocate 1930-1931 - 0520.pdf
'Shaun O'Nolan & Co., With "Willy Reilly and His Colleen Bawn," Going to Philadelphia.' NY Advocate Feb. 20, 1932 p. 2 column 3
New York NY Irish American Advocate 1932-1934 - 0087.pdf
"Shaun Nolan Opens at St. Vincent's Sunday Night" NY Advocate Oct. 18, 1930 p. 9 column 4
New York NY Irish American Advocate 1930-1931 - 0509.pdf
Smith, Josephine Patricia "Kerry Long Ago" [showing his movies of Ireland, songwriting and no copyright] NY Advocate July 13, 1946 p. 7 column 2
New York NY Irish American Advocate 1946-1948 - 0258.pdf
Spottswood, Richard K. Ethnic Music on Records: a discography of ethnic recordings produced in the United States, 1892 to 1942 University of Illinois Press 1990 Vol. 5 pp. 2842-44
Nick Whitmer
Dec. 2018 correction Feb. 2020