Sir, – I note in a BBC report how Margaret Thatcher wanted her funeral to be framed by British music, so “It will include compositions by Henry Purcell, Gustav Holst, John Ireland, Herbert Howells, Edward Elgar, Frank Bridge, Charles Stanford, Hubert Parry and Ralph Vaughan Williams”.
Stanford's inclusion on this list is dubious. Like WB Yeats, Stanford was an Irish Protestant born in Dublin whose work is filled with references to Ireland, such as the famous Irish Symphony and his final work Irish Rhapsody No 6 .
It has been noted that Stanford was a “pugnacious unionist” who lived in England for a large part of his life, yet the facts remain that he was born and educated in Dublin and died a son of the Irish Free State in 1924. Furthermore he used Irish music and literary references so liberally that, despite his politics, to call his music “British” would be akin to calling Yeats’s writings British.
If the BBC claimed Yeats’s writings as “British” in a report today there would be uproar. So we would do well to remind our British cousins and indeed ourselves that Stanford’s music, birth place and citizenship at the time of his death mean Stanford was irrefutably an Irish composer.
What irony it is that Thatcher is being laid to rest with some Irish music that she and her supporters still wish to claim as British! – Yours, etc,
Dr DAVE FLYNN,
Lough Rask,
Ballyvaughan, Co Clare.