Thomas Moore
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (February 2007) |
Thomas Moore (May 28, 1779 - February 25, 1852) was an Irish poet, singer, songwriter, and entertainer, now best remembered for the lyrics of The Minstral Boy and the The Last Rose of Summer. Born on the corner of Aungier Street in Dublin, Ireland over his father's grocery shop, his father being from an Irish speaking Gaeltacht in Kerry and his mother, Anastasia Codd, from Wexford. He was educated at Trinity College, which had recently allowed entry to Catholic students and studied law at the Middle Temple in London. It was as a poet, translator, balladeer and singer that he found fame. His work soon became immensely popular and included The Harp That Once Through Tara’s Halls, Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms, The Meeting of the Waters and many others. His ballads were published as Moore's Irish Melodies (commonly called Moore's Melodies) in 1846 and 1852.[1] [2]
Moore was far more than a balladeer, however. He had major success as a society figure in London, and in 1803 was appointed registrar to the Admiralty in Bermuda. From there, he travelled in Canada and the U.S.. It was after this trip that he published his book, Epistles, Odes, and Other Poems, which featured a paean to the historic Cohoes Falls called Lines Written at the Cohos (sic), or Falls of the Mohawk River, among other famous verses. He returned to England and married an actress, Elizabeth "Bessy" Dyke, in 1811. Moore had expensive tastes, and, despite the large sums he was earning from his writing, soon got into debt, a situation which was exacerbated by the embezzlement of money by the man he had employed to deputise for him in Maine. Moore became liable for the £6000 which had been illegally appropriated. In 1819, he was forced to leave Britain -- in company with Lord John Russell -- and live in Paris until 1822 (notably with the family of Martin de Villamil), when the debt was finally paid off. Some of this time was spent with Lord Byron, whose literary executor Moore became. He was much criticised later for allowing himself to be persuaded into destroying Byron's memoirs at the behest of Byron's family due to their damningly honest content. Moore did, however, edit and publish Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, with Notices of his Life (1830).
He finally settled in Sloperton Cottage at Bromham, Wiltshire, England, and became a novelist and biographer as well as a successful poet. He received a state pension, but his personal life was dogged by tragedy including the untimely deaths of all of his five children within his lifetime and the suffering of a stroke in later life, which disabled him from performances - the activity at which he was most renowned. His remains are in the vault at St. Nicholas, Broham.
Moore frequently visited Boyle Farm in Thames Ditton, Surrey, as the guest of Lord Henry Fitzgerald and his wife. One noteworthy occasion was the subject of Moore's long poem, 'The Summer Fete'.
Moore is considered Ireland's National Bard and is to it what Robert Burns is to Scotland. Moore is commemorated by a plaque on the house where he was born and by a large bronze statue near Trinity College Dublin.
- Many composers have set the poems of Thomas Moore including Robert Schumann, Hector Berlioz, Charles Ives, William Bolcom, and Lori Laitman.
- The song Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms is often used in a famous gag in a number of Warner Brothers cartoons, usually involving a piano or Xylophone rigged to explode when a certain note is played. The hero, typically Bugs Bunny, tries to play the melody line of the song, but always misses the rigged note (C above middle C). The villain or rival, finally exasperated, pushes the hero aside and plays the song himself, striking the correct note and blowing himself up.
Other works
- Lalla Rookh: an Oriental Romance (1817) (narrative poem)
- The Fudge Family in Paris (1818) (satire)
- The Loves of the Angels (1823) (narrative poem)
- The Epicurean (1827) (novel)
