Epitaph for a Musician: Rhoda Coghill as Pianist, Composer and Poet

Abstract

A pianist by profession, Dublin woman Rhoda Coghill (1903–2000) also sought to establish herself as a composer from the 1920s to the early 1940s before abruptly switching her artistic focus to poetry in the late 1940s and 1950s. This article is the first detailed study of Coghill’s work. It explores her career in the first half of the twentieth century chronologically and thematically; it addresses her impact as a performer, the nature of her compositions and the circumstances of their creation, and further claims that her poetry captures the essence of her musical experience and ideas. These themes are considered in relation to nationalist cultural politics as Ireland transitioned from Free State to Republic. As part of this, the institutional influences of Radio Éireann and the Feis Ceoil on Coghill’s musical identity and activities are scrutinized. Building on current developments in Irish musicology and reflecting literary scholars’ recent efforts to reassess Coghill’s importance, this article aims to understand her musical and literary outputs as the expression of a unified aesthetic and to stimulate interdisciplinary dialogue about this underappreciated pianist-composer-poet.