The Beat Cop

Chicago's Chief O'Neill and the Creation of Irish Music

Michael O'Malley

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Hardback

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English

University of Chicago Press
18 May 2022

Folk & traditional music

The remarkable story of how modern Irish music was shaped and spread through the brash efforts of a Chicago police chief.

Irish music as we know it today was invented not just in the cobbled lanes of Dublin or the green fields of County Kerry, but also in the burgeoning metropolis of early-twentieth-century Chicago. The genre’s history combines a long folk tradition with the curatorial quirks of a single person: Francis O’Neill, a larger-than-life Chicago police chief and an Irish immigrant with a fervent interest in his home country’s music.

Michael O’Malley’s The Beat Cop tells the story of this singular figure, from his birth in Ireland in 1865 to his rough-and-tumble early life in the United States. By 1901, O’Neill had worked his way up to become Chicago’s chief of police, where he developed new methods of tracking criminals and recording their identities. At the same time, he also obsessively tracked and recorded the music he heard from local Irish immigrants, enforcing a strict view of what he felt was and wasn’t authentic. Chief O’Neill’s police work and his musical work were flip sides of the same coin, and O’Malley delves deep into how this brash immigrant harnessed his connections and policing skills to become the foremost shaper of how Americans see, and hear, the music of Ireland.

By: Michael O'Malley
Imprint: University of Chicago Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9780226818702
ISBN 10: 0226818705
Pages: 352
Publication Date: 18 May 2022
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Introduction The Scholar 1 Tralibane Bridge: Childhood and Memory 2 Out on the Ocean: O'Neill's Life at Sea, in Port, and in the Sierra 3 Rolling on the Ryegrass: A Year on the Missouri Prairie 4 The New Policeman: O'Neill's Rise through the Ranks 5 Rakish Paddy: The Chicago Irish and Their World 6 Chief O'Neill's Favorite: The Chief in Office 7 King of the Pipers: O'Neill's Work in Retirement Epilogue Happy to Meet, Sorry to Part: The Legacy Acknowledgments Notes Index

Michael O'Malley is professor of US history in the Department of History and Art History at George Mason University and the author of Face Value: The Entwined History of Money and Race in America, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Reviews for The Beat Cop: Chicago's Chief O'Neill and the Creation of Irish Music

What O'Malley accomplishes in The Beat Cop is a highly readable, lush, adventurous examination of Chief O'Neill as a whole person, not just as the collector for the Irish musicians' Bible. The stories of O'Neill's adventures are entertaining and enjoyable, and O'Malley's writing is welcoming to both informed insiders and newcomers. * Sean Williams, coauthor of Bright Star of the West: Joe Heaney, Irish Song-Man *