IN THE HEART OF DUBLIN CITY

Kearney, Peadar (1883–1942), revolutionary and song-writer, was born 12 December 1883 in Dorset St., Dublin, eldest of three sons and three daughters of John Kearney, grocer and businessman, and Katie Kearney (née McGuinness). In 1901 he joined the Gaelic League, and soon after the IRB. Interested in music and theatre, he was a property man, and later a stage manager, for the Abbey Theatre (1904–16).

It is for his song-writing, and not his revolutionary activity, that Kearney is now remembered. He wrote a number of patriotic songs for the IRB, many of which were set to music by his friend Patrick Heeney  (1881–1911).

In 1907 Kearney decided to compose a rousing chorus song, which was written at his home, and at the Swiss Cafe, at the corner of Sackville (later O'Connell) St.; Heeney provided the music. The result was ‘A soldier's song’, which only gradually achieved popularity but would later became the Irish national anthem.

With the formation of the Irish Volunteers in 1914, this piece was adopted as their marching song, and it became the ‘national’ anthem for republicans after the 1916 rising. It was first sung in America that same year, when Victor Herbert performed his own musical arrangement in New York.

Kearney, touring in England with the Abbey Theatre at the time, quit to return to Ireland for the planned insurrection. At the Easter Rising of 1916, Peadar Kearney fought at Jacob's Biscuit Factory serving under Thomas MacDonagh.

He played a minor role in politics in the following years, but was arrested 25 November 1920, and spent a year in Ballykinlar internment camp, Co. Down. Released after the Anglo–Irish treaty (December 1921), he took the pro-treaty side and served as official censor at Kilmainham and Portlaoise prisons. Retiring from politics after the civil war, he decided on a career as a house-painter. In July 1926 ‘A soldier's song’ (increasingly sung in Irish as ‘Amhrán na bhFiann’) was adopted as the official anthem of the Irish Free State.

His other songs include ‘The three-coloured ribbon’ and ‘Down by the glenside’.

Kearney died 24 November 1942 at his home in Inchicore, Dublin.

Courtesy - Dictionary of Irish Biography - https://www.dib.ie/biography/kearney-peadar-a4411