Wicklow organist John Bonner tells all about the original rock ’n roll

“The most important thing for an organ is the building in which it is placed.” So says John Bonner who has been playing this particular organ for more than 40 years. A magnificent Victorian instrument, it provides music to accompany worship in the Church of Saints Mary and Peter at the heart of Arklow Town.

“Some churches have wonderful organs but they are carpeted to the nth degree so that the sound is deadened,” John observes wryly. No such problem haunts his home parish where, though the plasterwork overhead is splendid, the surface underfoot is generally plain. The result is that the acoustics allow quiet pieces to be heard clearly while the church thrums joyously with power when the volume is ramped up.

The sound coming from this ‘two manual tracker action instrument’ (apologies for the jargon) is never tinny or muffled or anything but gloriously rounded and full. This provides the church with an added dimension to liturgy in a league ahead of many churches on this island.

Built by John White, the organ is part of a Europe-wide heritage which harks back to before the immortal 18th century composer Johann Sebastian Bach. It has been accompanying Mass here in Arklow since 1878 and most of the components are as originally installed 145 years ago.

While many of its counterparts in some other churches have been left intact on the outside, their insides have been hollowed out to allow installation of modern electronic hardware. The result may be convenient and economical but it is no way the same…

White was the son of an illustrious organ builder of the same name who hailed originally from Enniscorthy in County Wexford. The father established his business in Dublin and it was there that John White junior also plied his trade. The younger man, who lived until 1918, is credited with kitting out the pro-cathedral in the capital and he arrived in Arklow not very long after completing work at St. Muredach’s Cathedral in Ballina.

His reputation spread as far as Australia, though the instrument he devised for St. Michael’s Cathedral in Sydney had to be assembled by local tradesmen. It was shipped Down Under from his workshop in Bishop Street and he did not travel with it to oversee its commissioning.

Recruiting the services of such a highly regarded specialist must have been a considerable financial commitment for a provincial parish with a limited population. Unfortunately, the record of how much was charged by White appears to have been lost but it was surely a substantial undertaking…

“An electronic organ is a bit like plastic flowers,” insists John Bonner, though no such move – desecration in the eyes of those who truly appreciate such things – has been mooted here at Saints Mary and Peter. Yes, there have been a few alterations over the decades to the grand old machine. The The original ivory veneers of both keyboards were so worn that they were eventually replaced by bone substitutes, for instance. And an electric motor was plumbed in to provide air to the pipes in the fifties, though the manually operated bellows remain on standby to this day.

“It is a fantastic piece of engineering,” enthuses John Bonner who reckons that organs were at the cutting edge of technology in early modern times before the Industrial Revolution. The one he plays is certainly fantastically complicated, an assemblage of metal and timber which must have taken months to piece together after it was dispatched from Dublin.

To the casual churchgoer, the most obvious manifestation of the workmanship involved is the array of 25 gilded tubes which produce some of the bass notes, showily displayed above the keyboards. Yet there are larger pipes – the biggest being almost five metres long. These are just the tip of an iceberg that runs to a total of 877 pipes. Most of the 877 are out of sight behind the imposing façade and some are only a few centimetres long.

Each one is geared to turn the flow of air into a precise note with a precise sound. Exactly which sound or combination of sounds comes out is controlled by the ‘stops’ which the organist pulls out or pushes in as required. Options include the classical organ sound – called diapason – as well as flute, horn (reed), string and mixture sounds.

All the various pieces in their hundreds which make up this leviathan are deployed by the organists who run their hands over the pair of keyboards and their feet over a set of 29 pedals. One of the pedals is connected to a set of wooden shutters which allows some control of the decibel level. So extracting the full potential from a grand organ such as this one demands not only manual dexterity but also some nifty footwork – the ultimate in multi-tasking.

“You play as though you are blind,” reveals John – he needs his eyes to read the sheet music which is propped up in front of him. His one big concession to modernity is that, rather than having the notes printed on paper, he has each piece before him on a tablet computer.

The big advantage of this is that he can turn a page on the tablet by moving his mouth, without having to lift his hand away from the keyboard. These days he shares most of the church’s organ playing duties with Rosarii Kinsella, aware that he comes to the wooden bench in the gallery as the inheritor of a long tradition.

“John White organs have a very warm and musical sound which we don’t find in many modern instruments to the same degree. For almost 150 years, this organ has been played by someone,” he notes. Each ‘someone’ has sat with their back to the altar, keeping an eye on the presiding priest with the help of a mirror. Access to his perch way up on high, close to the fine plasterwork of the ceiling, is gained via a set of steep stairs.

John is aware that a lady he now knows only as Miss Murphy was in the hot seat before his father, Sean Bonner, took over the role. Sean hailed originally from Donegal and his wife, Peg, was from Clare. Both were well-known teachers and John followed them into the profession in due course. They raised five children in their adopted town, with music providing a constant backdrop to family life.

The siblings all took piano lessons, so that John was the obvious candidate to play the school organ in the chapel as a boarder at De La Salle College in Waterford. Back home after taking a music degree at UCD, he was on the staff of St. Mary’s College for 42 years until he retired from the classroom in 2021.

Music was, naturally, one of the subjects that he taught during that time. He graduated with an MA degree in 2015.

Beyond the school gates he was for many years to the fore in the town’s silver band as it travelled around Europe to take part in competitions and recorded pieces for radio stations on either side of the Irish Sea. He remains the long-time director of the male voice choir which sings in the church.

However, his chief musical preoccupation is the organ, which has been a constant in his life since 1987 when his father announced that he was retiring from the keyboards. Parish priest, the late Father Gallagher, did not have far to look as he sought a replacement for Sean Bonner, lighting on his son with his full powers of persuasion.

Though he is otherwise taking things a little easier these days, John remains a regular in the organ gallery and a leading light in the campaign to give his old friend a bit of a lift. Though John White’s masterpiece remains in reasonable condition, it is vital to head off any decline and action is required to realise its full potential in providing the music for liturgies and recitals by local and visiting musicians.

Dust is the enemy in chief and all those pipes have not been cleaned since 1995, so that exercise needs to be repeated. Then there is a list of various improvements and alterations and replacements which also need doing. The total bill is likely to come to around €130,000 but it will be a price well worth paying and the fundraising is already well under way, thanks to the people of Arklow and a hard-working committee.

“It’s the original rock ’n roll,” says John Bonner of organ music. “There are people who come to Mass just to listen to the organ, or maybe that corner of the gallery is just convenient for them.”

Get ahead of the day with the morning headlines at 7.30am and Fionnán Sheahan’s exclusive take on the day’s news every afternoon, with our free daily newsletter.