The transfer from a church in Belfast to a church in Newry of an organ on which Handel is said to have performed, recalls to mind the tenacious Dublin tradition that the organ in St. Michan's is the instrument on which the same composer played his "Messiah" for the first time in public. So careful an antiquarian as the late W. J. Wakeman investigated the tradition many years ago and accepted it as authentic. In a magazine article relating to St. Michan's and its famous vaults, Wakeman stated that the organ "was removed from the old theatre in Fishamble street, the scene of the great composer's performance", to this church.
There are entries in the old manuscript record-book of St. Michan's however, which show that the popular tradition is not authentic. Handel's oratorio was performed in Fishamble street Theatre in 1741. According to the record-book St. Michan's organ was built by Culville in 1724. It is a beautiful instrument, in structure and tone, and it is quite likely that Handel, during his stay in Dublin, visited St. Michan's to inspect and perhaps play it. Thus might the popular tradition have originated. He is certainly supposed to have inspected and played on the organ in St. Werburgh's on that occasion, and why not St. Michan's also?
Where is now the chamber organ used by Handel at Fishamble street Theatre? On the passing of that famous old Dublin music-hall the instrument was transferred to the Bluecoat School, where it remained down to about fifty years ago. Lost sight of then for some years, it was at length traced to a private house in Eccles street, once the residence of Isaac Butt, where it may be still. Surely such a relic of the great German maestro should find a niche in some public museum.
The Irish Times,
December 8th, 1928.