At a Percy French commemoration in the United Arts Club on Monday night, there was a now-rare outing for the third verse of The Mountains of Mourne. This was omitted from Don McLean’s famous version, possibly for reasons of length. And it’s omitted too by most pub balladeers, maybe because they’re copying McLean but also because the lyrics are now politically incorrect, at least in the Republic.
As sung by the London-exiled narrator, the verse begins: “I seen England’s king from the top of a bus/I never knew him though he means to know us;/And though by the Saxon we once were oppressed,/Still I cheered – God forgive me – I cheered with the rest.”
Thus the homesick Co Down native – God forgive him – declares Saxon oppression a thing of the past. This in a song set sometime around 1905 (we’ll come back to that in a moment).
Then the verse continues: “And now that he’s visited Erin’s green shore/We’ll be much better friends than we’ve been heretofore/When we’ve got all we want we’re as quiet as can be/Where the mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea.”
French connection: Frank McNally on how Percy French continues to unite Ireland, by peaceful means
Red into the record – Frank McNally on why Maxim Litvinov’s Irish years were forgotten, and correcting a confusion of Joycean plaques
The Metal Man of Tramore – 200 years of solitude on the Waterford coast
Ted Kennedy vs the Trinity Maoists – John Mulqueen on fiery student debates
French wrote his lyrics to the old air Carrigdhoun, previously also used by Thomas Moore for Bendemeer’s Stream. But when exactly he composed The Mountains of Mourne is the subject of some confusion.
I’ve seen the dates 1896, 1900, and 1902 quoted in various places. None of which fit that verse, because (a) England didn’t have a king in 1896 or 1900 and (b) when it did acquire one after Queen Victoria’s death, he didn’t visit Ireland until 1903.
The earliest references to the song I can find in newspapers is 1906, which makes more sense. In any case, the verse about the king may betray something of French’s politics, insofar as he ever expressed them.
Born into an Anglo-Irish family, he seems to have been a small-u unionist. Consciously or otherwise, his line about the Irish being quiet when they get what they want carried echoes of the old British Conservative policy of “killing Home Rule by kindness”. This may be part of the reason French fell out of fashion for a while with the less quiet Irish who were about to assert themselves again.
But he never went away, entirely. And the quality of his songs, as well the obvious depth of affection he had for Ireland, north and south, means that the best of his work is still much-loved on both parts of the island today.
So it was with Paul McDonald’s rendition of The Mountains of Mourne on Monday, as everyone joined it with the bits they remembered: even the grumpy couple beside me who had complained constantly (“Mother of God”, “Christ almighty”, etc) at the length of the spoken-word presentations that preceded the singing.
The UAC event was designed to launch both the new International Percy French Association and a poster commemorating the 170th anniversary of French’s birth.
Aptly, the poster features a map of Ireland, as filled in by his songs and paintings. Few artists or composers can have immortalised more parts of the country that he did, from Down to Dromcolliher and Horn Head to Kenmare Bay.
The map includes as many of his lyrics and paintings as would fit. It’s now available via intpercyfrenchassoc@gmail.com or telephone 087 3654348. The Trinity Gallery in Dublin’s Clare Street has some too.
In his art, especially, French exemplified the Oscar Wilde idea of being in the gutter while looking at the stars. This is partly because, during his early career, he was an inspector of drains in Cavan but spent much of his free time painting the sky.
As art critic Hilary Pyle reminded us in the UAC, however, it was the daytime colours that most inspired him, especially in the aftermath of the eruption of Indonesia’s Mount Krakatoa in 1883, which resulted in spectacular light conditions all over the world for months afterwards.
The “Krakatoa sunsets”, as they were called, made a pleasant contrast with Cavan drains, but then French could find beauty in everything.
Apolitical as most of French’s songs were, they may have reflected another sort of sunset: the going down of British rule in Ireland. But in his continuing popularity both sides of the Border, he remains a peacefully unifying figure today.
This was a point underlined by Fergus O’Dowd, chairman of Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, who was keynote speaker on Monday. And sentiment was echoed by Bernadette Lowry, IPFA secretary, when she urged that French’s name should also be commemorated by the new bridge from Omeath to Warrenpoint.
Not only will that cross the Border, she pointed out, it will link the Republic with the Mountains of Mourne. Hence the “Percy French Bridge”, she suggests: “It cannot be called anything else!”