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Later Life & Death

Towards the latter-end of Elizabeth “Bess” Cronin’s life, her music was grouped together into a collection called, “The Commercial Recordings”. Even though Elizabeth was becoming old, she still somehow managed to fill her music with energy and warmth. However, upon listening to several collections, it is evident that she begins to struggle and reach her full singing potential.

Séamus Ennis recorded Elizabeth in 1947 and then later in 1952. He began to refer to Elizabeth as the “Muskerry Queen of Song”. This name stuck with her as it was certainly very suiting. Elizabeth went on to be recorded by several other figures, one of those being Alan Lomax, who was an American ethnomusicologist. He included her songs in the Irish volume of his 18-volume “Columbia World Library of Folk and Primitive Music”, which he edited whilst in London during the 1950’s. Diane Hamilton recorded Elizabeth in 1955, just months before Elizabeth passed away. These recordings were called “The Bonny Blue-Eyed Lassie”. Elizabeth sounds completely exhausted in these recordings, struggling against her words and melody, which upon listening to, sounds rather distressing. It was truly remarkable that Elizabeth managed to persevere, and sing somewhat beautifully.

Elizabeth fell ill to blood related diseases – toxaemia and anaemia. She still somehow managed to find the energy to sing, even though she sounded exhausted.

It becomes evident in her final recordings that she was ill as she has obvious breathing difficulties. It is apparent that she had to pause throughout songs in order to get her breath back. Her illnesses had unfortunately made her far too weak and consequently claimed her life on the 22nd May 1956.