Ina Boyle

Ina Boyle was the most Irish famous composer of the 1920s. She lived her entire life in her parents’ house at Bushey Park near Enniskerry as an eccentric, was sometimes impoverished, and lived very modestly among all sorts of antiques.

In her youth, Boyle learned to play violin and cello and later studied composition. The first public performance of one of her works was in 1920 by amateurs. In the following years, she received the Carnegie Award and a number of her pieces were published and performed in London, where she finished her studies. During her visits to London, she attended concerts and frequented book stores, developing a love for poetry. Although she became a recognized composer, she had frequent problems getting her music published and performed. She wrote choral works, song cycles, a string quartet, concerts for orchestra and three ballets. For the ballets, she also designed the stage design and the costumes. Her last major work was an opera called “Maudlin of Paplewick”. Her lyrics were influenced by Gaelic and medieval poems and contemporary English poetry. When she lived alone in the last years of her life under poor conditions and almost starving, she had visions and mystical experiences. Boyle died of cancer just having finished her opera.

Her Lament for Bion was inspired by the poem of the same title, which was falsely attributed to the Greek poet Moschus from approximately 150 BC. Bion of Smyrna (around 100 BC) was a late Hellenistic bucolic poet. The work for tenor solo and string quartet or string orchestra was written in 1945, but only premiered in Galway on March 16, 2022. The manuscript score and the ‘Honourable Mention’ diploma are preserved in the Manuscripts and Archives Research Library, Trinity College, Dublin.