THE IRISH ORIGIN OF “YANKEE DOODLE” AND “DIXIE.”
Apropos of the recent query relative to the origin of “Dixie,” the following letter of W. H. Grattan Flood, author of the “History of Irish Music” and “History of the Harp,” may throw further light on this famous melody. Mr. Flood is a responsible authority and is not given to unqualified statements, so his claim for Irish origin deserves consideration.
“My publishers duly forwarded me your letter, and I have much pleasure in answering it, if only to vindicate the Irish origin of ‘Yankee Doodle.’ ... Marion Harland merely repeats the exploded myth as told for the past century in all published accounts of the origin of ‘Yankee Doodle’ until Charles I. and Cromwell Association was shown to be utterly absurd by Bartley Squire of the British Museum. The verses to Lucy Lockett cannot possibly have been written before the year 1728, whilst Kitty Fisher did not die until 1771.
“I state now definitely that the tune of ‘Yankee Doodle’ is Irish and was known before the year 1750 as ‘All the Way to Galway.’ The song of ‘Yankee Doodle’ was adapted to this Irish air in 1755 (1756?) and the earliest reference to it is in April, 1767, when it was included as the fourth air in the comic opera of ‘The Disappointment.’ Oliver Wendell Holmes rightly calls the air ‘a country dance,’ and a manuscript copy of the Irish dance tune dated 1750 is still preserved. It was first printed by Aird of Glasgow in 1782.
“‘Dixie’ is also an Irish air, merely arranged by Dan Emmett for Bryant’s minstrels. By the way, Bryant himself, who ran the Christy minstrel business in New York in 1850, was an Irishman. His real name was Cornelius O’Brien and he died in Brooklyn in 1902. There were three brothers in the family, Cornelius (Neill), Daniel and Jerry. Neill gave the Irish air to Dan Emmet, who sang it in New York in February, 1859.”