CURIOSITIES:WHEN BARACK O'BAMA comes to the plains of Co Offaly to visit the townlands of his forebears - for it must happen, mustn't it? - what better way to celebrate his "homecoming" than to follow the example of the great Patrick Sarsfield "Patsy" Gilmore in Boston in 1869 and arrange a great National Peace Jubilee concert? Born in Ballygar, Co Galway, on Christmas Day 1829, the cornet-playing Gilmore arrived in Boston 20 years later. He soon set up his own minstrel company, composed popular songs - notably When Johnny Comes Marching Home - and got to know the music business inside out by acting as agent for other bands. He seems to have had endless energy, writes Andy Barclay.
He founded the 32-man "Gilmore's Band" at the tender age of 30, and they all joined up in the 24th Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment in 1861, only to be "mustered out" a year later to go back to Boston to hold patriotic concerts to boost civilian morale.
In New Orleans in 1864, with the war over, he organised a "Grand National Band" of 500 players and a chorus of 5,000 children. One account of the performance of Hail Columbia noted that it was "punctuated by thunderous roars from a battery of cannons, one of which boomed on each beat of the drum, reinforced by the pealing of bells in neighbourhood churches".
But that was in the penny place compared to the extraordinary five-day "National Peace Jubilee" that the indefatigable Gilmore organised in Boston in 1869. As Richard Crawford wrote in his magisterial America's Musical Life: A History: "Gilmore assembled vast forces: an orchestra of 500, a band of 1,000, a chorus of 10,000, and many famous soloists." In Verdi's Anvil Chorus, 100 Boston firefighters crashed hammers on to real anvils. The Jubilee was seen by over 250,000 people.
What a phenomenon was Gilmore. And what a successes he had. A sniffy critic, fellow Bostonian John Sullivan Dwight - a champion of music as edifying art rather than entertainment - called him "a man of common education", Irish by birth, good-natured and generous, but "an enthusiast of rather a sentimental type; chiefly known as caterer in music to the popular street taste, dispenser of military and of patriotic airs, exceedingly fond of demonstrations, restless getter-up of 'monster concerts'" - he seemed determined "to thrust greatness upon us by sheer force of numbers".
But . . . a band of 1,000! A chorus of 10,000! The tills were alive to the sounds of music. The cannons are just up the road in the barracks of Athlone. If you can rustle up 100 anvils, it's over to you, Offaly.