Biography of Capt. Francis O'Neill
Daniel Francis O’Neill lived a remarkable life by any standard. He was born in Tralibane, near the town of Bantry in Cork, in 1847. The youngest son of a “strong farmer” family of some means, he was educated in the National Schools. He excelled at school, especially at mathematics, and by his early teens served as a classroom monitor and eventually even taught some classes himself. His family wanted him to become a priest, but he had a thirst for adventure and Ireland offered very limited opportunities, so at seventeen, with a flute and a small stack of books, he shipped as a cabin boy on an English merchant vessel.
He spent four years at sea, circling the globe once and enduring shipwreck on a desert island the South Pacific. He made lengthy stays in Yokohama, Honolulu, New York and California, where he spent months herding sheep. He lived for a year on the prairie in Edina, Missouri, teaching mathematics and attending weekly barn dances. While living in Edina he reconnected with Anna Rogers, a young woman he had met while working on an emigrant ship. They married in 1871 and moved to Chicago, settling in the heavily Irish neighborhood of Bridgeport.
Working first in unskilled labor jobs and then as a clerk, O’Neill joined the police force in 1873. O’Neill began a steady rise through the ranks, based on a combination of education, coolness under pressure, and the help of aldermen, judges, and political allies from the city’s business class. In 1901 Mayor Carter Harrison II appointed him General Superintendent of Police: he served two full terms and part of a third.
Police work was rough, and exposed officers to the worst side of human behavior. He navigated saloons and backroom politics; he got into a street brawl with a notoriously thuggish alderman that put him on the front pages, and he pulled bodies from the wreckage of the Iroquois theater fire, which killed 600 people. He worked on behalf of the city’s business class to break strikes organized by his fellow Irish Americans, and defended harsh interrogation methods. But he also promoted African American officers, and strongly supported reforming the police department on the basis of merit rather than political connections.
Throughout his police career O’Neill played Irish music, with his fellow officers and Chicago’s large Irish community. More than once he got a good musician a job on the force. O’Neill especially loved the dance music of Ireland, the instrumental tunes he had heard growing up in Cork. He began systematically collecting tunes in the 1890s, working with a network of people, especially Edward Cronin and James O’Neill, who could read and write music fluently. By 1901 he had seven large notebooks full of tunes, many heard on the streets of Chicago, others learned from published collections.
In 1903 he published his first book, O’Neill’s Music of Ireland, which included almost 2000 songs, airs and dance tunes. In 1907, after he retired, he refined that collection down to 1001 tunes in the Dance Music Of Ireland. O’Neil wrote two large and unique histories of Irish music and musicians. The books put him in an international community of folklorists and scholars. He published his last book in 1924, but continued to write occasional pieces on Irish music for Irish and American audiences until his death in 1936, at age 87.
Further reading on the subject:
Carolan, Nicholas. A Harvest Saved: Francis O'Neill and Irish Music in Chicago. Dublin: Ossian, 1997.
Timeline of O'Neill's life
Born August 28, 1848, Tralibane, County Cork
1865: Departs Ireland as cabin boy on barque "Anne"
1866: Sails to US for first time on clipper ship "Emerald Isle," meets future wife Anna Rogers
1866-1867: Sails on clipper "Minnehaha" to Yokohama and then to Honolulu
November, 1867: Sails to Baker Island in the South Pacific on "Minnehaha." Shipwrecked and marooned on Baker Island on November 30, 1867
Dec. 11, 1867: Rescued from Baker Island and lands in San Francisco
April-September 1868: Herds sheep in Sierra Nevada foothills for rancher Clavin Salter
September 1868-March 1869: Sails in barque "Hannah" to NYC
Spring 1869: Worked as stevedore in Erie PA for his brother Phillip
Summer 1869-summer 1870: Taught school in Edina, Missouri
Summer 1870: Traveled to Chicago to work ships on the Great Lakes
November 1870: Married Anna Rogers in Bloomington, IL having reconnected with her on his way back to Edina from the Great Lakes
1870-1873: Works in Chicago in packing houses and freight yards
Summer 1873: Joins Chicago police force
1878: Promoted to sergeant
1883: Having been earlier promoted to Lieutenant, named Assistant Chief Clerk of the police department
1890: Moves to Drexel Blvd in Hyde Park
1893: Named Chief Clerk of the Chicago Police Department, attends World's Columbia Exposition, meets pipers Patsy Touhey and Turlough MacSweeney
1894: Promoted to Captain, serves during the Pullman strike
1900?: Purchases farm in Palos, Illinois
April 30, 1901: Promoted to General Superintendent of Police
April 1903: Reappointed to second term as General Superintendent of Police
1903: Publication of O’Neill’s Music of Ireland
December 31st, 1903: Supervises rescue at the deadly Iroquois Theater Fire
April 1905: Reappointed to third term as General Superintendent of Police
July 1905: Resigns after conclusion of the teamster’s strike
Spring, 1906: Hosts Douglas Hyde at private party in Chicago
Summer, 1906: Spends two months in Ireland
1907: Second book, Dance Music of Ireland
1908: Publishes O’Neill’s Irish Music, a selection of tunes arranged by James O’Neill for violin and piano
1910: Publishes Irish Folk Music: a Fascinating Hobby, and Popular Selections from O’Neill's Dance Music of Ireland, arranged by Selena O’Neill
1913: Publishes Irish Minstrels and Musicians
1914: Purchases winter home, “Glengarrif” in Gulf Springs, Mississippi
1915: With Selena O’Neill publishes O’Neill's Irish Music: Choice Selections Arranged for Piano and Violin
1922 and 1924: Publishes two editions of Waifs and Strays of Gaelic Melody
1931: Donates his library to Notre Dame
December 1933: Attends ceremony commemorating the 1903 Iroquois Theater fire
1934: publishes article on Irish Dances and Dance Music in Cork Examiner, 4/7/1934
1934: Contributes an article on the history of Irish music to the program for The Pageant of the Celt at the 1934 Chicago World’s Fair
1934: Wife Anna dies
1936: O’Neill dies at his Hyde Park home on January 26
