Patrick S. Gilmore - Irish Boston

Dedicated to the memory of Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore
"Father of the American Band"

Irish Boston

The following is excerpted from Irish Boston: A Lively Look at Boston’s Colorful Irish Past by Michael P. Quinlin

Globe Pequot Press/ August 2004
For more details on the book, click here.

When Johnny Comes Marching Home

In the years leading up to the Civil War the best-known Irishman in Boston was Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore. It terms of creating a positive image in the eyes of Bostonians toward the Irish, no one did it better than Gilmore. The dapper, handsome native of Ballygar, Galway arrived here in 1849 at age 19, a talented and ambitious musician who excelled on the cornet. He got his first job, thanks to Patrick Donahoe’s letter of introduction, at Ordway’s Music Store near the Old South Meeting House, and was put in charge of the Band Instrument Department. While there he organized a troupe of local performers called Ordway’s Minstrels.

This was an era when brass bands and military band were the main source of musical entertainment, and many towns had their own band which competed to be the best around. Gilmore spent a few years as the leader of bands in Charlestown, Suffolk County and Salem, and in 1858 was selected to head the Boston Brass Band, which quickly became known simply as Gilmore’s Band. He played at President Buchanan’s inauguration in 1857 and in 1860 at both national conventions – the Democratic in Charleston and the Republican in Chicago, the year Abraham Lincoln won the Republican nomination and the election. Gilmore organized the Boston’s first Fourth of July concert on the Boston Common, a musical tradition that continues today at the Boston Esplanade along the Charles River. Later, in New York, Gilmore started the New Year’s Eve countdown in Times Square that flourishes still.

According to Michael Cummings of Milton, founder of the Patrick S. Gilmore Society, the young musician penned a number of war-time anthems popular with both the troops and the public, including God Save the Union, Coming Home to Abraham and Good News From Home. His tune John Brown’s Body, written for the slain civil rights leader of the 1860s, became the most famous marching song of the Civil War. But the song that people still sing today is the famous anthem he composed in 1863, When Johnny Comes Marching Home, inspired by the ragged soldiers returning home from the front, on foot, by ambulance or in a coffin. The song debuted at Tremont Temple on September 26, 1863 in a concert conducted by Gilmore. The tune, inspired by an Irish marching song called “Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye,” was played by both Union and Confederate bands. It has since entered the pantheon of American patriotic songs and was reportedly the favorite song of President John F. Kennedy.

When Johnny comes marching home again
Hurrah! Hurrah!
We’ll give him a hearty welcome then
Hurrah! Hurrah!
The men will cheer and the boys will shout
The ladies they will all turn out
And we’ll all feel gay
When Johnny comes marching home.

Gilmore and his Band enlisted in the Massachusetts 24th Regiment of Volunteers and spent several years playing around the country, playing for soldiers on the front and for their families back home. He became the Bandmaster of the Union Army and spent a few years in New Orleans.

After the war, Gilmore was inspired to create a Peace Jubilee that would be the largest musical concert in the world’s history. Against all odds, he raised the capital to build a temporary Coliseum, 500 x 300 feet, in the Back Bay, just west of where Copley Square and the Fairmont Copley Plaza sit today. On June 15, 1869, Gilmore opened the five-day concert, which featured 1,000 musicians and 10,000 singers. President Ulysses S. Grant arrived in Boston to attend the concert on June 16, and over 100,000 people attended. He followed the feat in June 1872 with an International Peace Jubilee, which marked the end of the Franco-Prussian War. This occasion featured 2,000 musicians and 20,000 singers. One of the highlights of the week was a performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Anvil Chorus, during which 100 Boston Fireman banged anvils in unison on the tune. It also marked the American debut of Austrian Waltz King Johann Strauss, who had the status of a pop star in the 19th century.

Gilmore spent the last twenty years of his life traveling the world with his orchestra, basing himself in New York City, where his concert venue, Madison Square Garden was often Gilmore’s Garden. He continued to produce patriotic music that spoke to the hearts of both Americans and Irish. He continued to produce patriotic music that spoke o the hearts of both Americans and Irish. He provided the music for the major Irish-American occasions, such as the Centenary of Irish bard Thomas Moore in 1879 and the American visit of Land League organizer Michael Davitt of Mayo, who spoke before 10,000 people in New York in January 1887, with Gilmore’s 65 piece orchestra playing Minstrel Boy, the Rocky Road to Dublin and A Day with the Irish Brigade. Gilmore died in 1892 while playing a concert in St. Louis. He had come a long way from Ballygar, County Galway.