Monsieur A Chavalier told the audience that his balloon ascent was to take place on May 21st and the audience were invited to watch his ascent into the heavens from the Harris Yard for a modest fee the following day. The audience roared their approval. The betting was brisk as to who in the city would take the risk to fly with him.. At the back of the Hall, a group of poor Norwegian emigrants were perplexed at the strange proceedings. Their ship, the "Hannah Parr", was being repaired in the New Docks after having being dismasted in the Atlantic on a passage from Norway to America. Their unscheduled arrival to Limerick had been met with a great show of public sympathy and charity from the citizens. They were given food, clothes and shelter. The Church of Ireland, Methodists, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics vied to offer spiritual sustenance. Earlier that day a kind shipwright gave the stranded emigrants tickets to the Athenaeum. As Monsieur Chavalier left the stage to return to his seat, the Band encouraged him by playing the Marsellaise. The Norwegian emigrants got the drift. It was an excuse for an Irish party.

 Image #126. drawing of  Minstrels.

The Limerick Christy Minstrels, a local amateur group had been engaged as the support act by Miss Lonsdale. They were completely upstaged. It seemed everybody was upstaging everyone else that night. Miss Lonsdale had obtained the patronage of every male within sight of the Shannon estuary. All the leading businessmen in town were patrons including the Mayor and President of the Athenaeum, Mr Peter Tait, Mr John Quin, (who funded the spire of the Redemptorist Church), the City's High Sheriff, Mr Standish T.O ' Grady and Mr J.T.McSheehy JP (a founder and later President of the Athenaeum in 1858 and Mayor in 1861). The British Army were represented by Lieut. Colonel Peel the and Officers of the 52nd Regiment and the Royal Navy by the officers of HMS. 'Frederick Williams' warship, then conveniently anchored in the river. There was, at the time, no Ladies Committee of the Athenaeum to raise any objections. Nevertheless the city's high society was scandalised. What exactly Miss Lonsdale performed that night is not recorded in the newspapers. But diligent research reveals that in the U.S A the word burlesque was applied to a form of theatrical production that began in the late 1860s as a combination of the minstrel show and vaudeville, and which degenerated into ribald comedy and scantily clad women. Perhaps Miss Lonsdale was a woman ahead of her time.

The Original Christy Minstrels

The origins of American Minstrelsy can be traced back to Thomas Dartmouth Daddy Rice, who in the early 1830s developed a song-and-dance routine where he impersonated an old black slave whom he dubbed Jim Crow. The show was immensely popular in America and toured Britain in 1836. The routine was imitated widely, the most famous being the Christy Minstrels lead by the actor Edwin P. Christy who defined the minstrel show format by seating the entertainers in a semicircle facing the audience, with a tambourine player (Mr. Tambo) at one end and a performer on the bone castanets (Mr. Bones) at the other end as around a campfire. Songs were harmonised by a chorus and jokes were exchanged within the group with the middleman (Mr. Interlocutor) who acted as the master of ceremonies. A variety of specialist acts such as juggling, fire-eating etc concluded the performance. The musical instruments used were banjos which led to ragtime and the clog dance which became American style tap dancing. Originally the minstrel routine was performed by Black actors, especially after their liberation following the American Civil War. The Original Royal Christy Minstrels returned to play at the Cork Athenaeum in November 1868. It is not clear from the review whether the performers were black or white. In 1884 the Bonnie Boy Blue Burlesque Co gave a performance by Victor Stevens at the Athenaeum. His first Irish tour was described as the " largest and most elaborate fit-up ever seen in Ireland". In May 1885 a major row broke out in Limerick over the removal of the Athenaeum organ. The cause of this row had as much to do with the changing political order in Limerick (see p?) as it had to do with music. Many commentators in 1885 were of the opinion that the noble aims of the Athenaeum as an educational establishment and as a venue for classical music had been tarnished by renting out the Hall for political meetings or as a venue for popular "variety" entertainment acts. The most practical letter in the Chronicle is dated May 18, 1885 and came from a local dentist, George F.Hare (father of the artist) who suggested that the rules of the Athenaeum "will sooner or later (have to) undergo a complete change". He proposed a "new departure" whereby the Athenaeum should be let out to anybody wishing to use it. In this way the funding "of the Athenaeum would be considerably augmented". George F. Hare was a practical man who dealt with more mundane pains of the citizenry. His own advertisements in the Chronicle read that "Artificial Teeth perfectly adjusted upon the most approved principles. Mr H's 'Tooth Ache Specific,' (is available) post free on receipt of 12 stamps" from his dental surgery at 2 Pery Square, Limerick. An earlier letter to the editor published on the 2nd May makes an interesting comment about local songwriting and its role in history: "Dear Sir, I venture to take exception to one portion of that admirably comic verse 'The Limerick Watch Brigade' as rendered last evening by Boat Club Christys, where that historic force is represented by as calling the hour up to three in the morning. Can anyone say they ever saw, or heard a watchman at that hour? Yours truly, A Citizen. In 1895 the Anglo-American Minstrels appeared on stage as did Mr Albert Chavalier, the famous London music hall performer.

Wot cher! Last week down our al-ley come a toff, Nice old geezer with a nas-ty cough, Sees my Mis-sus, takes 'is top-per off, In a ve-ry gen-the-man-ly way!, "Ma'am says he, "I have have some news to tell, Your rich un-cle Tom of Cam-ber-well, Popped off re-cent, which it ain't a sell Leav-ing you 'is lit-tle don-key shay." "Wot cheer!" all the neigh-bours cried, "Who're yer going to meet, Bill Have you brought the street, Bill? Laugh! I thought I should 'ave died, Knock'd 'em up in the Old Kent Road!

In the Athenaeum that night guest artistes Mr Charles Bertram mystified the audience with his feats of magic with cards, billiard balls and coins and Miss Bella Clancy captivated the fashionable audience with her rendition of "Come Back to Erin". The booking arrangements were "very satisfactorily carried out by Mr W. T. Cope, Music Warehouse, 111 George street, Limerick". Unreserved seats were priced at one shilling. Many of these Music Hall hits can still be heard at sing-song sessions late at night in sea-side resorts during the summer months. Mr Chavalier's advertisement in the Limerick Chronicle, was placed beside another one for Michael Kent's shop in Kilkee (beside the Stella Maris Hotel) which boasted that he had been in business for thirteen years and that his celebrated pies and Bewley's mineral waters were available to tourists and visitors. In Kilkee, as elsewhere that summer, everyone was talking about the trial of Oscar Wilde in London where also a statue, nine foot in height and made of solid silver, of Limerick born actress, Ada Rehan, went on exhibition. The statue, titled Justice, had been exhibited at the World Fair in Chicago and was shown in New York, Paris and other European cities before returning to its permanent home in the Capital building at Helena, Montana. In 1897 Mr Andrew Roberton's coloured operatic Kentucky Minstrels performance was described by the Limerick Chronicle as "the world's acknowledged Monarchs of refined Minstrelry" and when they appeared in Dublin The Irish Times said "undoubtedly the finest organisation of Minstrels that ever appeared in Dublin". The Athenaeum clearly attracted the best acts in the business. Weeks later telephone communication from Limerick and Dublin was opened to the public. In comparison with the price of an Athenaeum theatre ticket, it cost an exorbitant 1/6 to make a three minute telephone call between the two cities. [The first telephones in Limerick were leased by the commercial firms of Messrs Bannatyne, Harris and Spaights]. In 1899 the Swiss Alpine Singers and The White Coon Banjo show performed at the Athenaeum bringing the "gay Ninties" to a close. It was the end of an era in more way than one for the Athenaeum.

Maud Gonne

The effects of the power change at the Athenaeum were seen in December 1900. Once again the Marseillaise was played in the Hall. This time, it was to welcome Maud Gonne (1865-1953) who had to the intense annoyance of the British Government had been awarded the Freedom of Limerick. There was a huge political row at the Athenaeum over whether she should be allowed to speak at all. The TEC were timidly afraid of controversy and refused her permission to speak on the grounds that she would break the no-politics rule. Michael Joyce MP and the Mayor successfully argued for her. (see p.?). However the authorities warned her not to speak of Irish politics at the Athenaeum. Everything about Maud Gonne was theatrical. Her performance that night was superb. Drama at its best. She spoke about her son, Sean McBride, and his fight for the Boers against English imperialism. The audience cheered. She spoke about the rip-off by English merchants selling Irish goods in France. The audience cheered. The Secret Service followed Maud Gonne everywhere or so she claimed in her autobiography. That night, she was protected by the Limerick Branch of the newly formed local branch of the Young Ireland Society. Nobody dared to stop her speaking. There would have been a riot.

A few years later, the same Young Irelanders staged the first production of the plays of W.B.Yeats in Limerick in the same venue. The plays were "Kathleen Ní Houlihan" and "A Pot of Broth" Decades later in September 1995, the newly formed Fola Theatre Group of Limerick performed "On Baile Strand" by W.B.Yeats. The play was introduced by actor, Kevin Dinneen, who had last performed at the Athenaeum in 1933 with the Limerick Drama League. He welcomed the new theatre company to the stage and captivated the audience with his memories of the Athenaeum in former days recalling the great performances by Anew McMaster's Shakespeare Company in 1926 and stories that he had heard as a child of the triumphant success of John McCormack and of the brilliant performance of the tenor's future wife who received encore after encore from the audience. The story of the trials of drama groups in Limerick is told elsewhere in this book. (p.?). Another group that performed plays were the Crescent College Drama Society who played at the Athenaeum in 1907, 1916 and 1920 prior to the construction of their own Hall.