Songs of Percy French

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A sculpture of a park bench and plaque depicting his likeness by Brid Ni Rinn was installed on the spot where French was inspired to write "The Mountains of Mourne" in Red Island Park, Skerries, County Dublin, in 2008. [10] William Percy French (1 May 1854 – 24 January 1920) was an Irish songwriter, author, poet, entertainer and painter. Beyond the manifold mathematical, musical, sporting, artistic, journalistic and poetic talents of Percy French lay a deeper talent, the ability to empathise with people, irrespective of whether they were in elevated and lofty positions or were simply the common man in the street or field. His ability to see through the decorum and propriety of late 19th Century society and discern its absurdities enabled him to parody this behaviour, always with humour, sometimes gently and at other times acerbic yet never with vulgar ridicule. Through his entire career he also demonstrated the greatest talent any entertainer could wish for, the unique gift of making audiences love him.

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. He was indeed talented in all fields, save one perhaps, his inability to garner wealth. He was a man of enormous generosity, demonstrated by the way he donated part of the fees for his performances to the Red Cross. Yet maybe this, his, “…giving with an open hand,” is not truly a flaw.

Emily de Burg Daly Daly: Prose, Poems and Parodies of Percy French, with an introduction by Alfred Perceval Graves (Dublin: Talbot Press, 1929; 3/1962). Clarke, Frances (2009). "Daly, Emily Lucy de Burgh". In McGuire, James; Quinn, James (eds.). Dictionary of Irish Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

In March 2020, a memorial to French was unveiled in Newcastle, County Down, in sight of the Mountains of Mourne, to mark the centenary of his death. [12] Percy French in Joyce's Finnegans Wake: The Jarvey [ edit ] French was renowned for composing and singing comic songs and gained considerable distinction with such songs as Phil the Fluther's Ball, [5] Slattery's Mounted Foot, and The Mountains of Mourne [6] (this last was one of several written with his friend, stage partner and fellow composer, Houston Collisson). [4] The song was set to the same air as Thomas Moore's "Bendmeer's Stream" which, in turn, was adapted from the old Irish Air "Carraigdhoun". French also wrote many sketches and amusing parodies, the most famous of which is The Queen's After-Dinner Speech, written on the occasion of Queen Victoria's visit to Dublin in 1900, in which French drolly suggests "There's a slate off Willie Yeats". In addition, he wrote several poems, some he called "poems of pathos". Many of his poems and songs are on the theme of emigration. He remained a regular contributor to The Irish Cyclist, a weekly journal until his death.

French was born at Clooneyquinn House, [1] near Tulsk, County Roscommon, the son of an Anglo-Irish landlord, Christopher French, and Susan Emma French (née Percy). He was the third of nine children. His younger sister, Emily later Emily de Burg Daly was also a writer. [2] Ye preferred the soldier's maxim when desisting from the strife "Best be a coward for five minutes than a dead man all your life." We reached the Mountains safely, though stiff and sore with cramp; Each took a wet of whiskey neat, to dissipate the damp. During World War I, the song Old Gallipoli's A Wonderful Place used phrases from this song as a basis for some of its verses. Verses in the Gallipoli song include: "At least when I asked them, that's what they told me" and "Where the old Gallipoli sweeps down to the sea".

As well as mounting several solo exhibitions of French's paintings he published several catalogues of French's watercolours. French's daughters, Joan and Ettie were regular visitors to the Oriel Gallery from the early 1970s and the gallery possesses their letters to Oliver. Peter Ustinov opened the 1986 French exhibition in the Oriel to a thronged audience. And only Gaelic spoken in that House in College Green. Told me landlords wor the Divil! their agints ten times worst,. French's archive currently resides in the North Down Museum, Bangor, County Down where researchers are welcome to view material by appointment with the museum. [19] Bibliography [ edit ] Find sources: "Percy French"– news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR ( January 2022) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)In 2008, Celtic Thunder released the song on their eponymous debut album. Their recording is adapted from Don McLean's version of the song and performed by Keith Harkin.

Nulty had been a collector for years before opening a gallery but he had a particularly fondness for French as his parents had met French in London in 1913 when they attended one of his matinees and met him afterwards. Nulty noticed that Irish visual art was neglected. He once witnessed that a George Russel had only been sold when a coal scuttle was thrown into the lot which sold for 2/6. The song is representative of French's many works concerning the Irish diaspora. The Mourne Mountains of the title are located in County Down in Northern Ireland. Ettie French: Willie: A Tribute to Percy French (Holywood, County Down: Percy French Society, 1994). When the Board of Works reduced its staff around 1888, French turned to journalism as the editor of The Jarvey, a weekly comic paper. [4] French was an enthusiastic cyclist, who cycled all over the country with his art materials stopping to sketch and paint. He was good friends with "Arjay" Mecredy, and when Mecredy went on holiday, he asked French to stand in for him as editor of The Irish Cyclist magazine. French's fey sense of humour caused him to make facetious replies to the letters to the editor, and Mecredy returned to a storm of raging withdrawals of subscriptions. He offered to subvent French in a humorous magazine.

A popular sung version by Brendan O'Dowda adds the following lyrics which may or may not have been part of the original: Then you'll meet the radiant vision who is all the world to you (You'll attend her mother's lectures later on); The song is a whimsical look at the styles, attitudes and fashions of late nineteenth-century London as seen from the point of view of an emigrant labourer from a village near the Mourne Mountains. It is written as a message to the narrator's true love at home. The "sweep down to the sea" refrain was inspired by the view of the mountains from Skerries in north County Dublin. [3] It contrasts the artificial attractions of the city with the more natural beauty of his homeland. A jarvey was the driver of a Jaunting car. Valentine Vousden wrote a famous song, "The Irish Jaunting Car" in celebration of Queen Victoria's visit to Ireland in the late 1850s where she took a ride on an Irish jaunting car in Killarney. Percy French wrote his own version of the song for his comic opera The Knight of the Road (1891). The hero of Finnegans Wake is also referred to as 'a Val Vousden.' The Knight of the Road opera is mentioned in Joyce's Ulysses too.