Capturing O’Neill is a digital humanities site featuring dedication pages by Capt. Francis O’Neill in his books of Irish traditional music, signed by the author, presented to contextualize 1900s life in Irish America.

The 75+ dedication pages in Capturing O’Neill have been crowd-sourced from a wide variety of archives, libraries, enthusiasts and private collectors. The research behind biographic information has been assembled by many of those involved, as well as by students in Scott B. Spencer’s Irish Music graduate course. The site has been curated by Dr. Scott B. Spencer (University of Southern California) with input, advice, peer review and perspective from:

Drs. Aileen Dillane (University of Limerick), Michael O’Malley (George Mason University), Daniel T. Neely (Irish Echo), Sean Williams (The Evergreen State College) with hosting and material support from the Ward Irish Music Archives in Milwaukee, and archival and material support from the Irish Traditional Music Archive in Dublin.

The official launch will take place on April 12 at 12:30pm Central Time on Zoom,

and in person at the Archiving Irish America: Music, Dance and Culture conference in Milwaukee.