THE ROSE OF TRALEE
“It was not her beauty alone that won me,
Oh no, ’twas the truth in her eye ever beaming;
That made me love Mary, sweet Rose of Tralee.”
TRANSCRIPTION of 1882 Article – The Kerry Weekly Reporter – Tralee -Sat Feb 20th 1892 – article images below
This article was copied from an American Journal -The New Orleans Delta – It was contested 2 weeks later with a letter from a local reader and that letter from the Kerry Weekly Reporter is also below pm Sat March 4th 1892.
The disputes over who Mary was continued for the next 50 years in similar articles and letters. The dispute over the author of the original lyrics was also disputed although now, following an investigation in 2019, it is agreed that it was William Pembroke Mulchinock.
“THE ROSE OF TRALEE”
TO THE EDITOR OF THE KERRY REPORTER.
DEAR SIR,—Under the above heading there appeared in your second last issue an extract taken evidently from a foreign newspaper, which for gross perversion of fact and cowardly defamation of the dead, is probably unrivalled in the broad domain of newspaper literature.
The article to which I refer purports to give a full and accurate account of the circumstances which led to the writing of the popular melody, which is so intimately associated with our town; but instead of doing so, it merely gives publicity to as vile a tissue of libels as ever found its way into the Public Press.
The writer, with the ingenuity peculiar to his class, endeavors to give his fictions a color of truth by asserting that he was personally acquainted with the author of the sweet song, and leads his readers to believe that he knew all about that gentleman’s family history; but he belies himself at the very outset.
He starts by saying that the poet was a son of Mr. John Mulchinock, a Draper of Tralee. Now there was only one John Mulchinock, a Draper in this town, and he was never married; in fact, the poet was only a nephew of his. So much for lie No. 1!
His statement that the name of the “Rose of Tralee” was Mary O’Connor, is equally fallacious; her name was Mary Sullivan. This disposes of lie No. 2.
But these mis-statements are “trifles light as air” compared to the mendacious calumnies which follow. “Latakia” (for that is the name of the scribbler who tries to trade upon the reputation of people who cannot now defend themselves) refers to what he with apparent sympathy describes as a painful termination of the Lovers’ Courtship—viz.—that the “Rose of Tralee” was the mother of an illegitimate child of which the poet was the father, and that she and her child died in Tralee Workhouse, that Mr. Mulchinock’s mind became unhinged in consequence, and that it was in one of his “lucid intervals” that he wrote the beautiful poem about the “Rose of Tralee.” It must be in one of his “lucid intervals” that “Latakia” wrote his fable, for a more unfounded or villainous fabrication could not emanate from even Mephistopheles himself.
Fortunately there are hundreds yet in Tralee who know Mary Sullivan from her infancy; many who went to school with her, some who were her companions in her later years, and a few who were acquainted with all the circumstances of her “Love Affairs;” and these people are unanimous in praise of the girl, who in the picturesque words of one of them “Died as she had lived, a Rose.”
These people will tell you that a more modest, unassuming and virtuous girl never lived. Indeed it was these good qualities that captivated the poet more than anything else, and he takes care to mention this fact where he says:
“‘Twas the truth in her eyes ever beaming,
That made me love Mary, the Rose of Tralee.”
The facts are that when their marriage was rendered impossible by organised opposition owing to Mary’s humble station in life, Mr. Mulchinock left the country, and “Mary” afterwards, to use the words of one of her friends “fell into a decline,” and died after a lingering illness—not in the Workhouse, but under her mother’s roof near Castle Street. During her illness she was constantly visited by her friends and by clergymen, and her death was as edifying as her whole life was pure and virtuous.
It is no wonder, therefore, that her old friends still living should be so indignant at the foul attempt to blacken the name and honor of our typical Kerry girl; and that being unaccustomed to writing for the press they have requested me to refute the libels.
It is easy to befoul the characters of the dead, but no one but a scoundrel could be wilfully guilty of such a deed.
Thank God, in this instance the effort to do so is unsuccessful, and can only recoil on the head of the party who made it. The name of Mary Sullivan remains and shall remain pure and unsullied notwithstanding any attempt to blacken it. Her memory will be as fresh and as sweet as the “rose bud in summer,” to which she was compared in such beautiful terms by the man who knew and loved her best; and the sweet strains of the song in which she was immortalised by her lover, will still delight the ears of thousands in every land—from the lovely dales of her native valley to the burning plains of India, where the song is well known, and from the Land of the Southern Cross to the busy avenues of New York, where I have heard it sung, and applauded in the midst of Yankees, Germans, Frenchmen and other “nationalities.”
I am, Dear Sir, Yours truly,
R.
[It should be mentioned that the extract referred to was taken from an American Journal—the New Orleans Delta—which, through an oversight, we omitted to mention at the time.—ED., K. W. R.]