Bartell D'Arcy

Bartell D'Arcy, a celebrated Dublin tenor, appears at the Morkan sisters’ dance as both a much-praised guest and a singer reluctant to perform. His eventual song, “The Lass of Aughrim,” catches Gretta Conroy’s attention and prompts a memory that changes the emotional course of the evening: through D'Arcy’s voice, the party’s convivial present opens onto a past Gabriel Conroy does not yet understand.

Identity and Place at the Dance

D'Arcy is introduced as a tenor whom Mary Jane Morkan describes as a particularly fine partner for Miss Daly and promises to persuade to sing later. Aunt Kate Morkan echoes the party’s admiration, calling his voice lovely. His reputation precedes his performance: he is already a celebrated attraction in the room, even as the guests must wait to hear him.

Reluctance and Performance

D'Arcy does not sing when first pressed. Miss O'Callaghan says that she and Mrs Conroy have urged him throughout the evening, but he has claimed to have a dreadful cold and to be unable to sing. Mary Jane calls it mean of him to stop just as everyone is rapt, while Aunt Kate accuses him of having told a fib. When he comes from the pantry, buttoned and wrapped up, he gives the guests the history of his cold; they respond with advice and concern for his throat in the night air.

The song is heard after the hall door has closed. Gabriel points toward the stairs, where Gretta is standing, and asks the others to be quiet. From a distance, D'Arcy’s hoarse, uncertain voice carries an old Irish air, its grief made more affecting by the imperfect sound. The song’s sorrowful words reach the listeners indirectly, faintly through the house, before D'Arcy comes downstairs.

The Song and Gretta's Memory

After the performance, D'Arcy appears with Miss O'Callaghan a few steps behind Gretta. Gretta asks him the song’s name; he identifies it as “The Lass of Aughrim,” adding that he could not remember it properly. She repeats the title and says she could not think of its name. Her attention to the song marks a sharp contrast with the others’ light conversation about D'Arcy’s cold: she has been absorbed by something the party’s talk cannot explain.

D'Arcy is not shown knowing what the song has stirred in Gretta. His performance nevertheless becomes the immediate occasion for her recollection of Michael Furey, whose past love for her emerges later that night in her conversation with Gabriel. In this way, D'Arcy’s brief, imperfect singing has consequences beyond the social entertainment he was expected to provide: it unsettles Gabriel’s assumptions about his marriage and prepares the story’s movement toward memory, mortality, and the dead.

Narrative Significance

D'Arcy’s role is limited in duration but decisive in effect. At first, his voice is a subject of party praise; then, heard from upstairs and strained by distance and hoarseness, it becomes a private summons for Gretta. The shift from public performance to intimate recollection is central to the closing movement of the Morkan dance: the song makes audible a past that Gabriel has not shared, and turns an ordinary evening’s entertainment into the threshold of his painful recognition.