Rhoda Coghill was born in
Dublin and studied from the age of eight with Patricia Read at the
Leinster School of Music. Between 1913 and 1925 she won 21 prizes at the
Feis Ceoil (Irish music competition), among them first prizes for piano solo, piano accompaniment and piano duet, after 1923 for composition. In that year she completed her largest score, the rhapsody
Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking for tenor solo, mixed chorus and orchestra, to a text by
Walt Whitman. Coghill also played double bass in the orchestras of the
Dublin Philharmonic Society and Radio Éireann. She continued her piano studies with
Arthur Schnabel in
Berlin (1927–8) to whom she had been recommended by
Fritz Brase. In 1939 she took a position as the accompanist of
Radio Éireann, where she remained until 1969. In this capacity she has worked with major performers of her day, both Irish and international, and gave exemplary interpretations of contemporary Irish works. She was known for remarkable
sight-reading capacities and her
absolute ear. She also appeared as a concerto soloist, reliably attracting large audiences. Coghill stopped composing in the early 1940s, concentrating on her performing career, but began writing and translating poetry (three publications between 1948 and 1958). It has been suggested that a reason for this re-orientation may have been that in the poetry and literature-dominated perception of Irish culture it was easier to receive acknowledgements as a poet rather than as a composer. Coghill remained unmarried and spent her late years from 1982 at Westfield House, Morehampton Road, Dublin, where she died aged 96. Her music manuscripts as well as some notebooks and diaries are located in
Trinity College, Dublin (MS 11111). ==Music==