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At the beginning of October,
2001, I was able to make a short, flying visit to the town
of Kenmare, Co Kerry, looking for remaining evidence of Jack
Moeran's long association with the area. This is my account:
The main road that runs out of
Cork towards Killarney is like too many major roads in Ireland
- slow, single carriageway, prone to unannounced sharp bends,
deep pot-holes, and slow lorries stuck behind tractors. Driving
through alternating bright sunshine and heavy showers, there
is little opportunity to take in the lush green rolling countryside
of County Cork, as I keep both eyes firmly fixed on the perils
of the road ahead. Having been a victim of a particularly
vicious pothole just outside Killarney before, which was taking
out a car every three or four minutes during a torrential
downpour, I was eager not to repeat the experience.
And then, suddenly, you enter Kerry.
The change is immediate - as you cross the county boundary
suddenly there you are, in
the mountain country. Gone is verdant Cork, replaced by
the rugged rock faces, autumnal rusty browns and deep, dark
greens of Kerry, stretching over vast expanses of steep hillside.
The great towering peaks seem to rise out of nowhere, and
within minutes the entire landscape has changed. It is this
majestic beauty of the Kerry mountains which brought Jack
Moeran back here time and time again to write his music. This
is his muse, his inspiration.
Finally we reach a long stretch
of good, wide road, soaring upwards into the hills, where
lumbering lorries can be safely passed and left long behind,
and there's a little extra feeling of freedom and space. Soon
though we turn off onto the Kenmare road itself, cutting a
narrow winding path through the valleys southwest towards
the town, twenty miles of near empty mountainscapes.
 The
old cemetery is one of the first landmarks as you enter Kenmare
from this direction. An ancient church, its roof and windows
long since abandoned to the elements, stands guard at the
entrance, and a brown tourist trail sign points the way to
my first rendezvous. It states simply: Ernest John Moeran,
Composer (1894-1950), and points into the general vicinity
of the middle of the graveyard.
 Once
inside it is just about impossible to follow its direction
precisely, and I stumble over dilapidated tombstones and overgrown
graves in my efforts. I'd seen Moeran's final resting place
before, in the 1971 RTE film
and in photos, and with these images in mind it was not hard
to find him. He lies now under a thick lawn of long grass,
with a small vase sitting over his head, long dead flowers
drooping forlorn over the side.
His view is superb, a panorama
down to the water, and across to the other side, more hills
climbing up into the clouds. It's hard to imagine a more suitable
resting place for a man who loved this area so much:
We'd reserved a room at the Lansdowne
Arms, where Jack usually stayed on his visits to Kenmare.
 The
hotel bar has since been renamed Moeran's Pub, but apart from
the name and a large, hand-tinted photograph hanging on the
wall, there is little of him here any more. The previous hotel
owner was reputed to have some sort of Moeran archive, though
this was disputed in a conversation I had later that day.
Anyway, he's no longer here, and nor is his memorabilia. Moeran
is mentioned in the hotel brochure, but this is short and
misleading, referring to his "great association with
Kenmare [which] occurred in the early thirties when he came
to stay at the Lansdowne Arms Hotel". No mention of his
living there often during the 1940's, or about his demise
in 1950.
After a pint and sandwich we decided
to take a walk down to the pier where, on that fateful day,
he met his end. It was not initially the easiest place to
find, somehow escaping the signs and "You Are Here"
tourist maps despite its proximity to the centre of what is
a very small town.
 The
sun was shining brightly over the water, but a strong wind
and some ominous-looking clouds suggested the weather might
be prone to change very quickly. As I walked to the end of
the pier, which creates a kind of harbour to shelter boats
inland, I could not help but speculate - did he fall, or did
he jump? Was he already dead when he hit the water or was
it a deliberate act of suicide from a very deeply depressed
man? The strong wind was whipping up choppy waves - it's an
exposed point which must get the worst of any winds funneling
up the valley across the water. They call it a river, but
it has the unmistakable taste of the sea about it.
I took a few photos and then walked
around to the other side of the pier, looking for the backdrop
which would fix the location of a photograph taken by an unknown
local in the late 1940's, trying to match up the distinctive
unchanging outlines of hilltops. I thought I'd found it, but
later I looked at the photo again, and was less sure.
We chewed it over as we strolled
back into the town. It seemed too incredible that a man bent
on taking his own life would choose this particular spot and
method, if only because of the inherent unreliability of any
attempt. Frankly, unless you were unable to swim (and Jack
was a strong swimmer) the worst you might expect would be
a rather cold soaking. As you climbed back up the steps onto
the pier you might expect to feel rather foolish, damp, shivering
with cold and very miserable, but not dead.
 As
we came over the crest of the hill and the centre of Kenmare
came into view a fantastic rainbow appeared overhead, seemingly
curving down into the town centre. In it I could clearly see
the sheets of rain teeming down and I realised we had seconds
to spare. Dashing down the road we just made it into the Post
Office as the heavy downpour began, and I was able to
take the opportunity to use one of their Internet PCs to fire
off a dispatch to the Moeran mailing list on my thoughts thus
far.
So was that it? We'd been to the
hotel and pub, visited the grave, looked over the end of the
pier. Surely though Kenmare might offer up a little more,
surely Moeran's imprint might still be found even 51 years
after his death.
The final leg of the trail proved
a little more elusive. The local tourist office had an exhibition
of local history which briefly mentioned Moeran, above notice
of Margaret Thatcher's claimed connections to the town(!),
but they had no literature or other material. Instead I was
directed to the Kenmare
Bookshop, situated opposite Moeran's Pub. Here I could
have purchased a copy of Lionel Hill's account of his memories
of Jack, Lonely Waters, and a photographic history of Kenmare
which includes the single photo of Moeran I referred to earlier,
but beyond that there was nothing...
...Nothing but a small lead. "You
might want to talk to Mrs O'Shea - she knew him. She's still
around in the town." I'd heard the name before, one of
Barry Marsh's many sources for his long-awaited biography.
And where might I find her? The directions were a little unusual
- a bar behind an antique shop on Henry Street. She was sure
to be there. "Just ask for Mrs O'Shea."
 Entering
O'Shea's B&B and Bar was initially rather confusing, as
I walked into a corridor which led to an unlit bar room, with
stairs leading off to one side and the appearance of entering
someone's house. It was her daughter who found me lingering
there, wondering quite what to do, and sure enough Mrs O'Shea
herself was found. She asked me my business and how I'd come
by her.
We talked briefly as I offered
my credentials, and soon she offered to meet me, after nine
o'clock, in the bar. Then, with a twinkle in her eye, she
left me with a parting comment, the bait that would ensure
my return: "He should never have married that Peers,
you know. He knew it, and he told me so." I knew I would
be back.
I never fully worked out the layout
of O'Shea's. The bar to which I returned has probably changed
little since the mid-fifties, when the place was purchased.
A row of beer taps dispenses Guinness and lager to the rear,
underneath the rows of spirits. The bar top and stools are
of a certain vintage. A small transistor radio chatters away
at the back, relaying the odd snippet of information interesting
enough to merit a momentary increase of volume. Somewhere
beyond this bar there appeared to be another, referred to
as 'below', where a serious bridge tournament was apparently
taking place - serious enough anyway to banish smokers to
a short break between rubbers in our bar.
Maureen O'Shea (above) was standing
behind the bar, serving and passing comment as I arrived,
and she insisted on standing my first pint. There were two
others in the bar as the froth settled on the black liquid,
and as the evening wore on these were replaced by a handful
of others, the hard-core being four men well into their retirement
years. One of these appeared to be Mr O'Shea, referred to
as Jim, there was a slightly younger man, Jack, a taciturn
man of few words whose name I missed, and a final entry who
had probably stopped off elsewhere on his way to O'Shea's
and whose entry was barely noted. They all had known the man
they called "Jacko".
The evening was convivial, and
our conversation drifted on and off the subject of Moeran.
A small nugget of information would arise, and then things
would switch to current events - politics, terrorists, Osama
Bin Laden.
 Some
topics were difficult to broach - clearly Jacko was held in
considerable affection, and awkward questions of drink and
death had to be circled around somewhat before they could
be addressed head on. Maureen told me how she had been in
the hairdressers when her mother came running in, distraught,
with the bad news. There was no doubt in the minds of the
assembled company that he died before he fell into the water
- the body had floated, there was no water inside him. We
moved onto the funeral - most small Irish towns even today
turn out well for a good funeral, but this was different:
Jack's brother, Graham, a Protestant vicar, had come over
to take charge of proceedings and insisted on a Protestant
burial well away from the catholic cemetery. The threat of
eternal damnation for Catholics attending a Protestant funeral
would have hung over the townspeople. But "everyone knew
him", and they all chose to ignore the risks and wrath
of the local priest in order to pay their last respects to
Jacko.
But of course there were other,
happier memories, of long games of billiards between Moeran
and Bax, who received news of his knighthood whilst staying
with Jack in Kenmare; of singing along (to Moeran's accompaniment)
his arrangements of what Jim called his "Irish Airs"
- I was unable to ascertain whether or not this referred to
his Songs from County Kerry. Again and again the pride felt
in the association between Moeran and Kenmare was voiced -
the youngest of our group, also called Jack, recalled how
he, as a schoolboy, attended a concert of orchestral music
shortly after Moeran's death. In his introduction to one piece,
the grand conductor stood up and announced the work by Moeran,
"who had a great connection with the town of Killarney."
Immediately a boy jumped up and
retorted "No he didn't it was Kenmare. He never even
went to Killarney!" I don't think I'd choose to believe
the latter point, but the lad would surely have risked a swift
clip round the ear from his schoolmaster for his insolence
in claiming the connection for Kenmare. However, the conductor
graciously acknowledged his error and the concert continued.
I was surprised to hear of the
number of friends Moeran invited to join him in Kenmare. Not
only Bax, whose love of Ireland is well documented, but also
memories of various members of the Hallé Orchestra,
including of course Pat Ryan, the clarinetist who appears
in the 1971 RTE film and who developed a great love for the
area. Moeran was even able to entice Sir John Barbirolli to
join him in Kerry, and no doubt other names could be conjured
up with a little more meticulous research.
One guest who was less welcomed
was Peers Coetmore. It soon became clear that she was held
in rather low esteem by the locals, and she was roundly condemned
for removing his piano and shipping it back to England, with
the suggestion that this might have actually hastened Jack's
decline. At least when he had his music he spent a little
less time in the pub, or so the argument went.
I was interested to hear about
his accommodation. Moeran's letters from Kenmare were always
headed The Lodge, rather than The Lansdowne Arms. The lodge
belonged to the hotel, across the road from the main building,
and here the long term residents lived, coming over to take
their meals in the hotel restaurant. The lodge was later demolished,
so one can only imagine from Maureen O'Shea's description
the room he used, his upright Bechstein in the corner, five
large windows allowing daylight to flood into a room "as
big as this bar - very large it was." Here he would work
away at his music while the hotel fended off telephone calls
demanding updates on his Second
Symphony. How Moeran struggled with that work in Kenmare
- "I can't just turn it on like a tap," he would
say as another impatient call was deflected. How they searched
his room after his death for evidence of this elusive work,
but to no avail.
And yet through all of this a fuller
picture of Jack Moeran only fitfully emerges, more a piecing
together of fragments, echoes from the past. He was "a
rogue", but "always a gentleman", no matter
what his state. He certainly liked a drink, but "it never
changed him, though you knew when he'd had one". (A question
about alcoholism was neatly side-stepped and the conversation
moved on...) He got on well with the people of Kenmare - "everyone
knew Jacko", but his walks around the town, which would
take him into any number of pubs, have a sad side to them.
Far from him being led into bad habits by others, he would
often move from bar to bar sitting alone, smoking his pipe
and drinking his pint, a solitary figure lost in his own thoughts,
someone who stood somewhat apart from the townsfolk. As much
as he loved them, and they him, he was not one of them - they
still do an amusing impersonation of his rather plummy accent,
so different from the thick, rolling brogue of the area.
 And
of those final six months in Kenmare? Certainly he had changed,
not quite the Jacko of old, his mind befuddled and confused;
he was clearly not a well man. And when he finally did meet
his end there was real shock and grief. Nobody thought he
had taken his own life, indeed nobody thought it unusual for
him to be out walking at that time of day in that weather
- "sure, it was a bit windy" sounds less like a
major storm and more like the kind of weather Kenmare gets
on a regular basis at that time of year, though the pier would
have been one of the more windswept points.
These people, who were the teenagers
and young men of the town in the 1940's, still carry with
them a strong collective memory of Jacko Moeran. My stay was
too short, I was not equipped with notepad or tape recorder,
and as the evening wore on the focus became more hazy, the
conversation more easy-going and informal. A great way to
do research, as long as you don't need to remember any precise
details the following morning! Clearly there is a treasure
of memories to be mined, and to find a group together, firing
off each others' recollections, bringing out small, apparently
unimportant nuggets which might otherwise have gone unsaid,
things perhaps thought unimportant in a more formal setting,
is fantastically rewarding.
The following morning I walked
back to the pier. The weather was much calmer, yet out at
that exposed point the wind was still brisk. I looked again
over the spot where Moeran died, and recalled the conversation
of the previous evening, noting the nearby houses from where
someone had been looking out when he went in. The only conclusion
I could reach was to agree again with the inquest verdict:
this is not a suicide spot, no Beachy Head. Surely he was
out on an afternoon walk to try and clear his head - if he
was on the cusp of death he would have been feeling pretty
unwell, and if it was a brain haemorrhage he might well have
had a splitting headache, the sort of thing a good blow of
fresh air might help. The end of the pier is an obvious point
to end up at if you're heading that way, to look out and get
the freshest air, somewhere I'd probably head myself in similar
circumstances.
I turned back into the town, located
a florist,
and bought Jacko some flowers to lie under. As I laid them
on his grave I could only reflect on the aptness of the inscription
on his headstone - "HE RESTS IN THE MOUNTAIN COUNTRY
HE LOVED SO WELL" - and believe that here he truly rests,
in peace.
©Andrew Rose
October 2001
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