Among the vices Arthur Conan Doyle bestowed upon his most famous literary creation – alongside his nicotine addiction and a fondness for cocaine – was a tendency to scratch away discordantly on his old fiddle. In The Case of the Cardboard Box, readers learn that Sherlock Holmes purchased the instrument from a Jewish pawnbroker on the Tottenham Court Road. It was quite a bargain. Although it only cost the great detective 55 shillings, Dr Watson tells us it is worth at least 500 guineas, being an authentic Stradivarius.
Of course, Holmes is a violin enthusiast. In A Study in Scarlet, Dr Watson recalls Holmes prattling away “about Cremona fiddles, and the difference between a Stradivarius and an Amati”. In The Field Bazaar, Holmes is found reading an article about the trees of Cremona and “the exact reasons for their pre-eminence in the manufacture of violins”.
Watson may have found his friend’s disquisitions on violin-making a trifle tedious, but Holmes knew what he was talking about. Located in the plain of the Po, Cremona has been the centre of Italian violin-making since the mid-16th century, producing such renowned luthiers as the aforementioned Nicolò Amati and Antonio Stradivari, the author of Holmes’s violin.
Cremona is also the title of one of Conan Doyle’s poems, which has nothing to do with violins but instead recalls the battle of the same name that took place in the city in 1702 during the War of the Spanish Succession. The battle became famous in the 18th century for the manner in which a party of Austrian grenadiers was able to surprise the French garrison with the help of a sympathetic Italian priest. The French commander, Marshal Villeroi, was taken prisoner while he was still in bed and, as Conan Doyle puts it, with “no wig upon his head”.
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But the Austrians failed to hold Cremona, thanks to the actions of Major Daniel O’Mahony and 600 Irish troops belonging to France’s Dillon and Bourke regiments who managed to repulse the main Austrian assault. The role played by the troops in saving the French position at Cremona led to a new appreciation of Irish soldiering among the monarchies of the European mainland.
O’Mahony’s reward for his role in saving the French at Cremona was an audience with Louis XIV, who promoted him to colonel, rewarded him with a pension worth 1,000 livres and gave him a present of 1,000 louis d’or. He also received a knighthood from the exiled James Stuart, the Old Pretender, before leaving the service of France for Spain. O’Mahony’s daughter, Mary Anne, later married the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon, after whom the pseudonymous column in this newspaper is named.
After the events of 1702, Cremona became associated with another type of instrument. Irish bagpipers playing an old Gaelic melody were said to have led the Irish troops against the Austrians. This air subsequently became known as the Battle of Cremona or, more commonly, The Day We Beat the Germans at Cremona.
The bagpipes or warpipes, as English commentators described them, had long been played by Irish soldiers marching into battle. In the 1500s, the Italian lutenist Vicenzo Galilei wrote that the bagpipes were “much used by the Irish” and that “this unconquered fierce and warlike people march their armies and encourage each other to deeds of valour” to their sound. Galilei was not only a lute player, he was also a composer and music theorist, as well as being the father of a famed astronomer by the name of Galileo.
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During the War of the Austrian Succession, bagpipers attached to the French army’s Irish brigade are believed to have played the The Battle of Cremona as they marched into battle at Fontenoy. In the mid-19th century, the battle inspired Irish patriots such as Thomas Davis, whose ballad The Surprise at Cremona recounted the bravery of “a handful of Irish” and the high wail of old Ireland “for her children who died”.
As traditional Gaelic culture waned in the 17th and 18th centuries, so too did the prevalence of the blown bagpipes. They were replaced by the uilleann pipes. Unlike the warpipes of old, the instrument was played by a new generation of Irish nationalists as part of a soft power strategy. For example, in 1908, during a papal audience in Rome, Éamonn Ceannt donned a traditional piper’s costume to perform O’Donnell Abú and The Wearing of the Green on the uilleann pipes for Pope Pius X.
Today, the faint memory of the battle in the Italian city is recalled in the name of Cremona House and its surrounding townland, just south of Swords village in north Dublin.
