A harvest saved

by Nicholas Carolan

"Daniel Francis O'Neill (1848-1936) of Cork and Chicago is an outstanding figure of the Irish diaspora. From a rural background in Ireland he rose by native ability to become chief of police in the second largest city in the United States, and, after an early life that belongs to the novels of Conrad and London, he made in middle age the largest collection of Irish traditional music ever published. A traditional musician himself from childhood, he has had through his publications the greatest single personal influence on the course of Irish traditional dance music in this century."--BOOK JACKET. "Of all the collectors of Irish music, Francis O'Neill has told us most about his own life and collecting work. Interviews he gave to journalists and biographers in Chicago, his own studies of Irish music, surviving letters and other sources detail his Co. Cork youth, his coming to America and his involvement with other traditional musicians there."--BOOK JACKET.