Denis Cox (Donnchadh Mac Coiligh, c. 1882—1962) first came to public notice as a prizewinner in the Feis Ceoil platform competitions of the 1920s, specialising in songs in Irish, and he enjoyed success also at feiseanna throughout Ireland in the same decade. Born in Trim, Co Meath, he spent most of his life in Dublin where he established a successful recital career. A natural baritone sometimes billed as a tenor, he went on to study classical singing and undertake concert tours in Britain, Germany and Italy. He made a short singing film for the Pathé Company and in 1934 represented Ireland at the World Fair in Chicago. Cox taught ‘Gaelic’ singing in the Municipal College of Music in Dublin from 1945, and performed songs in Irish and national songs in English frequently on Radio Éireann until the late 1950s.

From 1928 Denis Cox recorded extensively in London for the Parlophone Record Company, in Irish and English, and some of these recordings continued to be issued into the 1950s. About 1936 he recorded also in English for the Beltona Company. His songs in Irish were the subject of a special Parlophone marketing drive in 1933, when the company published a booklet of the texts of the songs in Irish he had recorded (see related material below).

Cox was generally described by newspapers as an ‘Irish traditional singer’ at a time when sean-nós Gaeltacht singers rarely got a public hearing, and he was even accepted as a traditional singer by the organisers of 1950s fleadhanna ceoil concerts. He was in fact a classically trained singer of traditional songs with a well developed stagecraft and a winning personality, who performed normally with piano or orchestral accompaniment. In his singing in Irish he belonged to a Gaelic League concert tradition of accompanied singing that had grown up since the 1890s.

See also Denis Cox, Songs in Irish in Print, 1933 below.

Do you have other Denis Cox recordings or less worn copies of the Irish Traditional Music Archive recordings presented here? ITMA would welcome their donation or the opportunity to copy them.

With thanks to record donors Vincent Duffe, Reg Hall, John Loesberg, Bernard Sexton, Áine Sotscheck, Geoffrey C. White, & the Franciscan Order, St Clare’s Convent, Harold’s Cross, Dublin, per Sr Mairéad Ní Fhearáin.

Nicholas Carolan & Danny Diamond, 1 August 2009

This booklet of texts of songs in Irish recorded by the Dublin-based baritone Denis Cox (Donnchadh Mac Coiligh) was published in 1933, presumably for the general educational market, by the Parlophone Company of London, the recording company which since 1928 had been issuing his many 78s of songs in Irish and English.

This booklet of texts of songs in Irish recorded by the Dublin-based baritone Denis Cox (Donnchadh Mac Coiligh) was published in 1933, presumably for the general educational market, by the Parlophone Company of London, the recording company which since 1928 had been issuing his many 78s of songs in Irish and English.

The 25 songs in the collection are mostly 18th- and 19th-century traditional songs, of the kind that had been popularised by the Gaelic League in their concerts since the 1890s. Originally noted from oral tradition, many of the songs had been published in the periodicals and songbooks of the League, and, after the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922, by commercial publishers. The published songs were frequently arranged for voice and piano, or for small vocal groups, by such arrangers represented here as Carl Hardebeck, Vincent O’Brien, and Hubert Rooney (who was Cox’s vocal teacher).

Traditional love songs, political songs, comic songs, praise songs, and religious songs are included in the booklet with some recently composed pieces. Remarkably, the song texts are published without English translations; one, ‘An Fhuiseog’, is a translation from English.

See also Denis Cox, Songs in Irish on 78s below.

With thanks to donor Cáit Ní Chonchubhair.

ITMA would welcome the donation of other materials of this kind which are not yet in its collections (check our catalogues here), or of their loan for copying.

Nicholas Carolan & Maeve Gebruers, 1 August 2009