Selena O'Neill
Selena O’Neill was a prodigious violinist and pianist who assisted Francis O’Neill with a number of his collections of Irish music. She began her musical studies at an early age, studying first at the Nativity Parochial School, and then, while still a teenager, at the Chicago Musical College (now the Chicago College of Performing Arts, housed at Rochester University, New York). Though she received classical training, O’Neill—a first-generation American whose father was a fiddler from County Cork—had both a love and an instinctive talent for Irish music, and quickly gained a reputation for her performances.
The “Fairy Fiddler,” as she came to be called, won many Irish music competitions, including the Gaelic Feis at Chicago (1913). Often, she competed successfully on both violin and piano; indeed, her piano renditions of Irish dance tunes were so skillfully played that the participants in the dance portions of these competitions requested that she perform with them rather than their own accompanists. O’Neill continued her performing career throughout the 1910s and 20s, and recorded a number of folk tunes with Victor Records in 1928. However, her most lasting contributions to the Irish repertory were her collaborations with Captain Francis O’Neill.
It should be noted that Selena O'Neill was said to have suffered from hearing loss, upon which Capt. Francis O'Neill commented many times. In a presentation to Na Píobairí Uilleann, Michael O'Malley argued that it’s very possible she was not deaf, but that she feigned deafness because Capt. O’Neill was overbearing. She had as they say Bodhaire Uí Laoire, the “deafness of O’Leary.” Well after he claimed she was "stone deaf" and "as deaf as Beethoven" and said "conversation with her is impracticable" she was listed in the census as a music teacher and she recorded eight sides for Victor records. Her employment records at the Pullman car factory during WWII make no mention of deafness and photos of her don’t show any hearing aids. [Michael O'Malley]
