The Irish Comic'

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 10, 7 March 1907, Page 9

The Irish Comic '

• For years past we have triod to arouse among our Celtic readers a religious sentiment and racial prid-e that will, we trust, lead to the speedy disappearance of the stage Irishman from Catholic entertainments in New Zealand. He still, ' we think,- performs his apish antics here and there on St. Patrick's night in the social hinterlands — bawling Cockney ' comic ' songs whcse ' comicality ' is that of the street-corner, and whose' ' wit ' consists • in the vulgar, the suggestive, the coarse, or the rough-and-tumble. ' A typical Irish song ', said Mr. F.-W. Bancroft, an American non-Catholic lecturer and singer, 1 like a typical Irish character, is always misrepresented on the stag©. Both, according to the stage, are al- . ways common and often vulgar. In reality the Irish song; is beautiful in sentiment, transcendent in imagination, graceful in sentiment. : .' The comic song we always hear in the theatre as an Irish song is not an . Irish song from any viewpoint. There is not the least bit of Irish about it, and those who give or accept it as such display lamentable ignorance. This song is not at all to be compared to" the real Irish song, and indeed very few of our latter-day songs, _ comic or otherwise, are to be compared to it '. • l • . - In his pleasant volumes of ' Records and Reminiscences ', Sir Francis C. Burnand — the sparkling wit and ■ editor of ' Punch '— expressed his. strong repugnance for ' the so-called " comic song "'. He could, never find it in his heart to sneer at, or find a subject of ridicule ~--in, the faith or race or country of any man. c I have • no sort of inclination ', says he (vol. i, p. 82), «to laugh at a Brahmin, a Mahoramedan, a Hindoo, a Pro-testant-cf any denomination, on- account of his creed.

And as for the Jew, directly I arrived at years of discretion I perceived very clearly that Fagin was not ji representative Hebrew, and was glad to see that Dickens haid made the amende honorable by drawing that cha-rnv-ing picture of Mr. Riah, the long-suffering servant of " Fascination Fledgeby ", the vulgar, scheming, mean, money-lending Christian '. J ■ ~ We have no • sympathy with the misrepresentation of a race or faith. And, in regard to the coarse and vulgar travesty of *an ancient and much-tried Catholic people, we cherish the hope that the movement which is now afoot in many Knglish-spe&king countries will in due course see the last apish specimen of the jstage Irishman sent to the bone-mill. '