DOLMEN HOTEL
CARLOW IRELAND
SEPTEMBER 19, 2008
The Carlow Concert was over. The large crowd was filing down the long
staircase of the Dolmen Hotel. Those ahead of us were leaning over the
banister observing some commotion below. Sure enough, Ireland's
Greatest Living Tenor was down there signing autographs. As always
the very gracious host, he was at the bottom of the stairs to meet as
many of his fans as possible as they left.
His mother Betty was trying to organise the queue but as the
crowds swarmed around her famous son, she turned to me and
said 'I really need to get out of here'. Anthony caught my eye and
over the heads of a large group of people, called out to me 'See you
in Boolavogue', pointing his biro skyward, he added 'when the sun is setting'.
Those of us who travelled from all parts of the USA and England
and all the locals present looked on this Carlow Concert as the
prelude to the most historic concert in the life of this young tenor.
On Sunday night he would sing Boolavogue in Boolavogue.
In Carlow we enjoyed his fine voice, we enjoyed enjoyed our two
national treasures, Anthony and Patrick, but but only one song was
important tonight: Anthony sang 'How Great Thou Art' with Fr.
Purcell's Kilkenny Gospel Choir. All present knew that if Fr. Purcell
and his singers brought the house down to thunderous applause, tonight
in 2008, he did so without fear of arrest, torture and execution.
A very emotional Jim Treacy had tried to find words to introduce
our greatest National Treasure. 'This man...this man...this man'...
words escaped him as his notes fell to the floor and a member of
the audience retrieved them for him. Yes, all present knew what
he wanted to say. This man is the World's Greatest Tenor and
anybody who said that honour belonged to Paverotti had
not heard Anthony Kearns.
Anthony's cousin sat beside me. She had first heard him sing
when he was seventeen years old. In Carlow, unlike the USA there
were no gasps of awe, no tears, no wild applause. This was their
neighbour that they heard hundreds of times in the past. The smiling
faces in the audience said it all, he was their Anthony and they knew
how great he was for years and years and years.
All present knew that as Anthony sang with the Kilkenny Gospel
Singers, the executed Fr. Moogue Kearns lived again tonight and
on Sunday night we would hear Anthony sing again in the church
of the executed Fr. John and Fr. Michael Murphy in Boolavogue.
As coincedence would have it, this review is written in a house
on the road in Ballon, Co. Carlow where a signpost states 'Fr.
John Murphy's last Journey'. Sitting beside me is the person
who lifted the memorial stone in place in 1998 at the spot near
Tullow where Fr. Murphy was captured.
Maire Peters
