His biographer Nicholas Carolan referred to him as "the greatest individual influence on the evolution of Irish traditional dance music in the twentieth century".

At an early age he heard the music of local musicians, among them Peter Hagarty, Cormac Murphy and Timothy Dowling.

He also collected tunes from some of the major performers of the time including Patsy Touhey, who regularly sent O'Neill wax cylinders and visited him in Chicago.

His musical works include: In 2008, Northwestern University Press issued Chief O'Neill's Sketchy Recollections of an Eventful Life in Chicago, a non-musical memoir edited by Ellen Skerrett and Mary Lesch (a descendant of O'Neill), with a foreword by Nicholas Carolan of the Irish Traditional Music Archive.

The monument, made by sculptor Jeanne Rynhart, and a commemorative wall were erected through the efforts of the Captain Francis O'Neill Memorial Company.

[7] In August 2013, the inaugural Chief O'Neill Traditional Music Festival took place in Bantry, County Cork, just a few miles from Tralibane.