"When Irish Eyes Are Smiling"
One would expect a song with a title like this to have been written by an Irish troubadour, but "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" is actually an American song; it was written by two of New York's most prolific professional songwriters in collaboration with a leading vaudeville performer, none of them Irish
The most successful song with an Irish angle of the decade was published by the New York firm Witmark, copyright 1912; the credits were shared by George Graff Junior and Chauncey Olcott who wrote the words, and Ernest R. Ball, who composed the music.
Maybe they weren't Irish but to this day many Americans with even quite tenuous ancestral roots in the Emerald Isle refer to themselves or are referred to as Irish-Americans, including Presidents Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy. Although Chancellor "Chauncey" John Olcott was American born and bred, his mother was born in Ireland and came to the United States via Canada, and Olcott himself wrote and co-wrote many Irish songs.
Olcott was an American stage actor, songwriter and singer. Born in Buffalo, New York, in the early years of his career Olcott sang in minstrel shows and Lillian Russell played a major role in helping make him a Broadway star. He retired to Monte Carlo and died there in 1932. His body was brought home and interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx. His life story was told in the 1947 Warner Bros. motion picture My Wild Irish Rose starring Dennis Morgan as Olcott. In 1970, Olcott was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
"When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" was first performed by Olcott, in The Isle O' Dreams, which was based on a play by Rida Young set in Ireland in 1799. The show appears to have gone down like a lead balloon; it opened at the Grand Opera House, New York on January 27, 1913 and closed February 22.
Needless to say, the song faired much better; it has long become a St Patrick's Day standard, and has been performed by artists as varied as Bing Crosby and Frank Zappa. A live recording was made by Perry Como in January 1994; During the First World War the famous tenor John McCormack recorded the song.
The song continued to be a familiar standard for generations. Decades later it was used as the opening song on the radio show Duffy's Tavern. The song has been recorded on over 200 singles and albums and by many famous singers, including, Connie Francis, and Roger Whittaker.
Unsurprisingly, it has been used in many films including Irish Eyes Are Smiling - the 1944 bio-pic of composer Ernest Ball - and in the 1947 production Wild Irish Rose (the title of another Olcott song).
In April 1943, a copyright dispute concerning "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" was decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, to quote from the judgment: "This case presents a question never settled before, even though it concerns legislation having a history of more than two hundred years." Although the judgment is very lengthy, the song is now in the public domain, since it was published in the USA prior to 1923.
"When Irish Eyes are Smiling" has been used in the following movies:
"Return to Me," 2000
The song gained especial notoriety in Canada after the so-called Shamrock Summit between Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and U.S. President Ronald Reagan held on St. Patrick's Day, 1985. At the end of the evening, the two leaders jointly performed "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling", for which Mulroney was extensively criticized in the Canadian press.
Prior to my moving to New York Saint Patricks Day just meant wearing green and getting pinched if you didn't. When I had my first Saint Patrick's Day here and saw the whole city turn green (*even the Empire State Building!) and everyone from Little Italy to Harlem, wore green, and knew the words to
"When Irish Eyes Are Smiling"....I knew that everyone was Irish for the day!
No matter where you are this year on Saint Patrick's Day or what your heritage is go ahead and belt it out, it's fun!
Lyrics
When Irish eyes are smiling
There's a tear in your eye,