John’s guest this week is Mary Lesch. She is the great-granddaughter of Chief Francis O’Neill of the Chicago Police Department. As a fearless police officer in a tough city in the late 1800s, he was incorruptible. But he also was a devotee of Irish folk music, with a gift for recording them as he heard them while walking his beat. It has been recognized that he was “the man who saved our music” when these memories were reintroduced to Ireland much later date.
