"The world, so long as it can be moved by sympathy and exalted by fancy, will not willingly let die the tender strains and the patriotic fire of a true poet", writes Robert O' Byrne.
When Earl Russell wrote these words, he was referring to Thomas Moore, the 150th anniversary of whose death falls today. But who now remembers Moore, for a long time considered our national poet? The eternal fame once predicted for him, not just by Russell but many other admirers including his great friend Byron, appears not to have been realised. Almost buried beneath foliage, the statue designed by Christopher Moore - no relation - and erected to his memory on Dublin's College Street in 1857 is now scarcely noticed.
How different were the circumstances during his lifetime, when another poet, Henry Luttrell, could declare: "I'm told, dear Moore, your lays are sung/ (Can it be true, you lucky man?)/ By moonlight in the Persian tongue/ Along the streets of Ispahan." It seems unlikely that Moore's lays, otherwise known as Melodies, and for long the staple of every Irish drawing-room, are much sung in this country, let alone in the cities of Iran. Like so many other writers from the first half of the 19th century - one thinks of Lady Morgan, the Banim brothers, Gerald Griffin - if Moore is recalled at all, it is only by name.
Modest origins
Today, however, provides an opportunity to retrieve some of his lost fame and to celebrate once again the many talents of this remarkable man, not least his ability to leave far behind very modest origins. Thomas Moore was born in Dublin's Aungier Street on May 28th, 1779, the son of a spirit grocer. Educated first at Samuel Whyte's fine academy on Grafton Street, now the site of Bewley's Café, he then attended Trinity College, even though he was a Roman Catholic.
While an undergraduate, he began to publish his poetry and during the same period he demonstrated his nationalist sympathies. Several of his friends, including Robert Emmet, were United Irishmen and in December 1797 Moore anonymously published A Letter to the students of Trinity College Dublin proposing that they should "march against the tyrant; let us conquer or die."
Although he subsequently spent much of his adult life in England, Moore's constant engagement with the country of his birth is worth stressing, lest he be relegated merely to the position of a salon balladeer. Many of the items included in his two-volume Irish Melodies, published in 1808, refer to the 1798 Rising, to Robert Emmet and also to Lord Edward Fitzgerald (whose biography he would write in 1831 despite warnings from friends that its appearance might damage his reputation among English admirers).
Also in 1808, Moore produced two long poems published as Corruption and Intolerance which railed against both the methods used to pass the Act of Union eight years earlier and the problems of Anglo-Irish relations.
Naturally, given his own upbringing, he was also an ardent advocate of Roman Catholic emancipation, as represented by a number of works included in Intercepted Letters, or The Two-Penny Post Bag of 1813.
Established favourite
However, it was primarily as a poet rather than as a polemicist that Moore became known throughout Europe. For many years, his popularity was greater than that of such contemporaries as Keats, Shelley and Wordsworth. Moore's only rival in terms of sales was Byron, his junior by eight years. When the two men first met, the younger was only just starting his career while Moore was already an established favourite among readers; their respective positions in the popular hierarchy would be reversed after Byron published Childe Harold.
When Byron left England for the Continent, he wrote: "My boat is on the shore/ And my bark is on the sea;/ But, before I go, Tom Moore,/ Here's a double health to thee!"
He left Moore the manuscript of his memoirs, subsequently burnt in the offices of the London publisher John Murray at the request of the dead poet's widow and half-sister, both of whom feared what that document might reveal.
Despite the acclaim - and the money - he received for pieces such as his oriental poem Lallah Rookh, Moore was intelligent enough to recognise that much of his writing would prove ephemeral and that his Melodies,, based on traditional airs collected by Edward Bunting in the late 18th century, were likely to have the most lasting appeal. And until recent decades, such was the case. Even if The Fudge Family in Paris or Memoirs of Captain Rock were long out of print, songs such as She is Far from the Land and 'Tis the Last Rose of Summer continued to be sung and appreciated. Now it is difficult even to find recordings of them and performances are still more scarce.
Lecture at RIA
Tonight, however, for those fortunate enough to have received an invitation, there will be a chance to hear Moore's Melodies sung by the soprano Kathleen Tynan - a Wexford woman, like the poet's mother - and played by the pianist Dearbhla Collins. The pair will be appearing in the Royal Irish Academy after a lecture on Moore's legacy given by Prof Seamus Deane, the title of which - "Let Erin Remember" - is ironic, given our nation's current forgetfulness of her former chief poet. And in the RIA further restitution for the neglect into which Moore has fallen is being made through an exhibition on his life and work. Open to the public during the weeks ahead, this show is based around Moore's own library of almost 2,000 volumes, bequeathed to the academy by his widow Bessy.
There are Henry Fox Talbot photographs of Moore in old age - when, sadly, his once luxuriant curling hair had all but gone - letters showing his near-impenetrable handwriting and even the harp on which he used to perform his own melodies, famously reducing any women present to tears. Equivalent public displays of emotion now tend to be inspired by boy bands, but in the right setting and the right circumstances, perhaps Moore's Melodies can still move the listener?