PERCY FRENCH – PAINTING, POETRY, PERFORMANCE AND PADDYWHACKERY? - Gene Smith

Percy French – Painting, Poetry, Performance and Paddywhackery? 

Gene Smith

Paper delivered Easter 2017 AFN Conference, National Library Canberra

Like some of my contemporaries in Ireland in the 1950s, I grew up listening to Brendan O’Dowda singing Percy French songs on the radio. I was doubly fortunate as my grandfather, who had a fine tenor voice and a great liking for the same songs, performed them daily for the family. As an adult, learning to read music and play instruments, I continued my enjoyment of French’s songs although some of his old-fashioned values and use of the Irish people as the subject of his humorous songs made me question my admiration. An example is McBreen’s Heifer, one of Percy’s many songs about the economics and humour of courtship and marriage. It depicts young Jamesy O’Byrne trying to choose a wife and being confused by the dowry offered with one sister and not the other.

Sez he “to wed Kitty is very good fun,
Still a heifer’s a heifer when all’s said an’ done.
A girl she might lose her good looks anyhow,
And a heifer might grow to an elegant cow.”

Although our first reaction to the sentiments in the song may be negative, as the blatant trading of women in marriage does not sit well today in the western world, the song does demonstrate Percy’s skill as a songwriter and story-teller. We enjoy the well-painted characters of the greedy and puzzled young suitor and the impersonal know-all of the schoolmaster, the twist in the story, the memorable lines and the cheerful tune which complements the text. However, we are left with a story which treats women as objects and gives a less than flattering depiction of the Irish characters. In addition, Percy uses Hiberno-English, a form of English which reflected the speech of the native Irish and which was often used in an exaggerated form to make the Irish the butt of stage jokes. All of this, the jokes, the Irish characters and their speech and their use by an Anglo-Irish stage performer poses questions about the songwriter’s motivations. Should we be more critical? Who was this Percy French and why is he still remembered?  In answering these questions, this paper looks at Percy French’s many talents but will focus mainly on the songs, his best known works.

William Percy French was born into a well-connected Anglo-Irish family in Roscommon in 1854. The Anglo-Irish were the ruling elite, living in the big house and representing the government of England. Members of Percy’s family had been appointed to the office of High Sheriff. In his play The Hostage, Brendan Behan defined Anglo-Irish as “a Protestant with a horse” (Behan 1978, p143). This short amusing definition encapsulates the “other” of the Anglo-Irish in a country where most of the population was Roman Catholic and too poor to own a horse or the “big house”.

Percy’s education followed the pattern of many of his Anglo-Irish peers – home tutoring, school in England and university at Trinity College Dublin. An early introduction to Euclid by a home tutor suggested an engineering degree and a path into the railways. Later he became Inspector of Loans to Tenants for a government drainage scheme in County Cavan. All of this predestined him for a conventional career path but, Percy’s artistic life and talents at school and university and his focus on painting, poetry and song while at work, led him in a different direction and made him famous in Ireland and abroad. That his heart was not in engineering was clear when he purchased new strings for his banjo and packed them and a tennis racquet and an easel to prepare for his first job. His sister, Mrs de Burgh often travelled with him when he undertook his engineering work and she commented:

“Sometimes he sketched, sometimes hummed over airs likely to go well to verses he had composed, or insisted on my singing the melody while he arranged the harmonies” (O’Neill 2016, p.7).

It was clear that Percy’s heart lay in the arts rather than engineering. His daughter Ettie noted that  her father “was remembered  chiefly as a songwriter but oddly enough song writing was just one of his sidelines” (O’Neill 2016, p.157).  His stage brochures described him as an “Irish art humorist” which encompassed his own poetry, singing, banjo playing and artwork. Painting was a special gift and love of his and he produced many watercolours, over 90 alone being in the North Down Museum and many others in private hands.  He could draw with both hands and a special concert trick was his upside down drawing which would be revealed at the end of the performance. Although his watercolours sell well (one sold for $62k) his songs have kept him firmly in the public eye and heart. In the days before mass communication, his punishing concert performance schedule through Ireland, England and America allowed him to publicise his songs, poems and plays. Over 150 years later his songs are still loved and sung in Ireland and the Irish diaspora, his paintings are sought after and his work is commemorated by the great and good in an annual festival in Roscommon. Yet when you examine the songs and poetry, you could be taken aback by the use of the Irish people as the subject of most of the humorous and popular songs. Can he be accused of paddywhackery?

Paddywhackery is defined as “a form of racial stereotyping that highlights the presumed characteristics of Irish people.  At best, paddywhackery is humorous and endearing; at worst, it is annoying and even offensive. Like all stereotypes, paddywhackery is a denial of individuality” (Pitlane Magazine May 2014). The Urban Dictionary defines paddywhackery as “the fakey out of the box Irishness” noted in stage Irish depictions nowadays such as the TV show Mrs Brown. In 1899 The Spectator (7 October, p.26) noted “but the mischief is that a great many people believe that this is the true and characteristic Irish humour, and form their estimate of the Irish people accordingly. …However, sentiment of this sort is always vastly popular in the music-halls, and no doubt it is profit- able (sic) to evoke it.”

The work of a contemporary of Percy’s epitomised this style of stage Irish writing. Robert Martin, pen name Ballyhooly and brother of Violet Ross of Somerville and Ross, authors of The Irish R.M., was strongly anti-Home Rule and a boycotted landowner. His stage characters used a thick pastiche of Hiberno-English to caricature the way Irish people spoke English and this suggested their lack of education and intelligence. Although Martin was popular in some quarters, he was reviled by many in Irish society. Arthur Griffith, in The United Irishman, referred to him as “A thing called Robert Martin (who has) done more to slander Ireland than any man alive” (Stevens 2011, p.104). Although many consider the Irish happy to laugh at themselves, sensitivity to such stage Irish depictions continue to cause tension. J.M.Synge’s Playboy of the Western World  faced riots when first performed (Grene 2017) and recently the actor Ardal O’Hanlon (RadioTimes2017) noted that he vets all scripts before performance: “In every show I’ve been involved in I read the script, take out the Irishisms right away and say, ‘I’ll supply those’”.

Can Percy French be accused of paddywhackery? At the time Percy was writing and performing, the English view of Ireland was largely critical, fuelled by Irish agitation for smallholders to buy rather than rent land from English landlords and for Home Rule for the country. Percy, like Robert Martin, was Anglo-Irish and a stage performer who used Irish incidents and characters as the main theme of his humorous performances, plays, songs and poetry. His position as a member of the Anglo-Irish elite and use of the local Irish (unlike Somerville and Ross he did not often use his own class) as his stage subjects placed a distance between him and the people he portrayed. A publicity brochure for his shows in London (1901) noted that he spent many years “studying the idiosyncracies (sic) of the Irish peasant” (Tongue 1990).  Just as Robert Martin had, Percy used Hiberno-English for his character’s dialogue and this was at a time when The Gaelic League was striving to revive Irish culture and the Irish language. Was he blind to the political situation? He rarely refers directly to poverty, the Land Wars or Home Rule. His musical Strongbow, which he hoped would have a long season, was not well received and closed after a week as he suggested the English were invited into Ireland. Did he therefore avoid political references in his work? Publishers had advised Anglo-Irish writers to avoid the political in deference to local sensitivities (O’Neill 2016, p.84).

Why then was Percy French loved and remembered by so many when others such as Robert Martin were reviled and largely forgotten? Over 150 years after his birth, Percy’s works are recognised, performed and discussed at the annual Percy French Summer School in Roscommon. There academics, politicians, artists and musicians come together to celebrate his life and review his place in the modern world. His songs enjoyed a renaissance in the 1950s in Ireland through the work of the singer Brendan O’Dowda. His songs and poetry continue to be performed in Ireland and beyond. Why is Percy loved and why does his work endure?

Dr Julie Stevens (2012)  notes that “ French did not alienate his audience in the way that Robert Martin did, as French was seen as being truer to Irish humour and Irish ways in his ability to recreate ‘genuine native fun’ rather than comment on it from a distance.” Percy had always enjoyed mixing with people and listening to their stories. His travels around Ireland as an engineer had been invaluable and as an unashamed bower-bird, he seized upon events and turns of phrase for his writing. Alan Tongue (1990, p.50)  recounts the story of a woman who saw Percy painting one of his many pictures and invited him in for a cup of tea. Her children had all left home for America and she uttered the memorable line, “’Tis lonesome …with the childer away”, a line which inspired Percy to write a song, one of the few sad songs in his repertoire and  one of many he wrote on the theme of emigration. The Mountains of Mourne, one of these emigration songs, written in the form of a letter home to a sweetheart, demonstrates Percy’s skill as a story teller. Each verse paints a picture of the newly discovered city of London, the loneliness and longing for home and the “otherness” of the new migrant.  A newspaper clipping from 1912 (Tongue 1990) notes that “in serio-humorous or sentimental songs he blends a tuneful verse with a hauntingly pleasing pathos, simple and tenderly touching.”  The Emigrant’s Letter written as Percy sailed on a ship to Canada conveys the sadness of the Irish migrants who might never see their homeland again.

“And a long sort of sigh seemed to come from us all
As the waves hid the last bit of ould Donegal.
Oh it’s well to be you that is taking your tay
Where they’re cuttin the corn in Creeshla the day.”

Although Percy did not explore the political situation of the time, perhaps because he was avoiding the kind of backlash he had experienced with his musical Strongbow, he tapped into social concerns such as emigration. He did not involve himself in the politics of the Land Wars but he did explore the social and economic effects of the tension between romantic love and the need for land acquisition through marriage. McBreen’s Heifer demonstrates the extremes of this with girls and heifers being weighed in the marriage contract while in Little Brigid Flynn the young man feels the expectations of his parents to “get a girl who owns a bit of land”. In  Ach, I Dunno a clear-eyed young woman notes:

“I’m simply surrounded by lovers since da made his fortune in land,
They’re comin’ in crowds like the plovers to ax for me hand”
Although there is a young man who takes her fancy, she is more than aware of the difficulties of married life:
“I’ll not be a slave like me mother with six of us all in a row.”

These few examples point to Percy French’s skill as an observer, listener and story-teller. His publicity material (1901) boasts that the “Irish songs are  based on  real incidents, and are not the incoherent medley of manslaughter and whisky which London is too prone to look upon as voicing Ireland’s humour” (Tongue 1990).

What of the charge of using Hiberno-English? There was no doubt that Irish people did speak English in a more colourful way and used the syntax of their native tongue in many phrases.  W.B.Yeats, a proponent of the Gaelic League and a critic of all things stage Irish, had difficulty in voicing the Irish characters in his plays and needed the support of Lady Gregory to add authenticity to the dialogue and the characters (Stevenson 2012). By contrast, Percy’s characters paint themselves through their dialogue. He used Hiberno-English sparingly, avoiding the exaggerations used by other performers. His ear for the language was noted by many. Berrie O’Neill (2016, p.63) quotes Derek Collie who was renowned for his knowledge of Irish culture: “Percy had an acute ear for the local idiom….revealing the character and expression of the people”. Dialogue is the basis of much of Percy French’s work and, as in McBreen’s Heifer, the characters not only tell the story but manage to paint a vivid and, in this case, less than flattering picture of themselves. It is in the songs, with the skilful marrying of text and music that Percy’s genius must be appreciated.

In her paper for the 2012 Percy French Summer School, Dr Ita Beausang comments that the songs  are blessed with  not only the “wit and use of language…but also the inventiveness and charm of the music” (Beausang 2012).  In composing his songs, Percy collaborated with Dr William H Collisson and others including his daughters but for many of his most popular songs he wrote both the words and the music. As a professional stage performer Percy French would have been very aware of the importance of connecting with the audience and of the need to marry the text and the tune. His humorous songs have lively tunes, often Irish dance rhythms, with dotted notes to emphasise the important words. He would change the key or the rhythm between verse and chorus in songs if it suited his purpose. McBreen’s Heifer and Are Ye Right There Michael are examples of this. In Mc Breen’s Heifer the verses which tell the story are in 6/8 and the chorus, the outsider’s view, is in ¾ time. Shlathery’s Mountain Fut appropriately changes from a jig to a march in the chorus. Percy used well-known Irish airs in some songs and rewrote music if he felt it did not match the text as in Are Ye Right There Michael? 

These songs were an important part of Percy’s stagecraft. He used stories he had heard in Ireland and doubtless he embellished some in the interest of his performance but he is never accused of malice or cruelty.  He was noted for his “Irish eye” (Stevens 2012) and many spoke of his closeness to the people and sympathy with them. Although he performed for many English audiences, he was well received all over Ireland. Alan Tongue (1990) lists 175 locations in Ireland for his concerts. In the excerpt on Percy French in the Companion to Irish Traditional Music (Vallely 2011, 288), the comment is made that his “humour is  perceived as laughing with the plain people rather than at them.”  O’Sullivan (1960, p.1), a proponent of traditional Irish songs, reminds us that “anyone who wishes to understand the mind and soul of the Irish  people must have recourse to their songs”. He castigates Thomas Moore for the poetic unreality of his songs but reminds us that Percy French is still loved (p.10).

Percy provides us with real vignettes of life in the late nineteenth century. Through his songs, poems and plays we can tap into a world which is long gone. As Catriona Clear (2015) notes:  “Percy French’s songs have great historical value because their humour and pathos were rooted in his keen observation of the Irish people he knew and loved at a time of rapid social change”. Percy may have used the Irish people as the subjects of his stories and performances but the humour was light and “genuine native fun” (Stevens: 2012), the humour Irish people themselves enjoy in one another. He straddled the gap between  Anglo-Irish and the local people with ease and “his talent, charm and wit allowed him to appropriate facets of an older mirror image held up by the English, to reconfigure them, and to infuse them with such delight that they can be and are reclaimed as our own (Cox Cameron 2016). With an acute ear, a painterly eye, an empathy with those he met and a talent for story-telling and performance, Percy French captured the world around him in memorable, gentle and humorous vignettes. His enjoyment of life shone through his work. As Percy himself said: (2017 Percy French Summer School brochure):

“I was born a boy and have remained one ever since.
Friends and relatives, often urge me to grow up and take an interest in politics, whiskey, race meetings, foreign securities, poor rates, options and other things that men talk about, but no –
I am still the small boy messing about with a paintbox, or amusing myself with pencil and paper, while fogies of forty determine the Kaiser’s next move.”

 
BIBLIOGRAPHY

2017 Percy French Summer School  brochure: http://percyfrench.ie/percy-french/songs-poems-parodies/
Beausang, Ita 2012: 2012 Percy French Summer School  “The better will the music be…Melody and Rhythm in the Songs of Percy French’
Behan B. 1978: The Complete Plays Eyre Methuen London
Clear, Catriona 2015: 2015 Percy French Summer School, ‘Percy French and Irish everyday life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries’
Cox Cameron, Olga 2016: 2016 Percy French Summer School ‘A stranger in my own midst’
de Burgh Daly, M (ed) 1929 : Prose, Poems and Parodies of Percy French  Dublin: Talbot Press
Grene, N. 2017: ‘How 110-year-old Playboy caused a riot’  http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/how-110-year-old-playboy-caused-a-riot-1.2952274
Healy, James N.1966 : Percy French and his Songs Cork: Mercier Press
Nulty, Oliver 2002: Lead Kindly Light. Celebrating 150 Years of Percy French Bernadette Lowry ed. Dublin: Oriel Gallery
O’Dowda, Brendan 1981: The World of Percy French Belfast: Blackstaff Press
O’Neill, Berrie 2016: Tones that are Tender: Percy French, 1854–1920 Dublin: Lilliput Press
O’Sullivan, Donal 1960: Songs of the Irish An anthology of Irish Folk Music and Poetry with English Verse Translation  Browne and Nolan Limited Dublin
Pitlane Magazine 2014: http://www.pitlanemagazine.com/cultures/paddywhackery-is-it-offensive-or-a-tribute-to-irish-culture.html
RadioTimes 2017: http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2017-05-05/meet-the-new-star-of-death-in-paradise-ardal-ohanlon-with-me-theyre-going-for-something-a-little-bit-quirky
Stevens, Julie: 2011 ‘Somerville and Ross and Percy French on Edwardian Ireland’  in Brian Cliff and Nicholas Grene (eds) Synge and Edwardian Ireland  OUP 2011 https://books.google.com.au/books?id=CAch2rITmm8C&pg=PA5&lpg=PA5&dq=synge+and+Edwardian+Ireland&source=bl&ots=JVESaV9FlI&sig=CNjSXe0G_bn1oEsraXRFmwwVWgU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj3m_S45K3VAhXBE5QKHaRfDIUQ6AEIRjAG#v=onepage&q=synge%20and%20Edwardian%20Ireland&f=false
Stevens, Julie 2012: 2012 Percy French Summer School ‘Percy French, Somerville and Ross and the Irish Scene’
Stevenson M. 2012: ‘Lady Gregory and Yeats Symbiotic creativity’ http://jrul.libraries.rutgers.edu/index.php/jrul/article/viewFile/1577/3018
 The Spectator 7 October 1899
Tongue, Alan 1990: A Picture of Percy French Belfast: Greystone Books
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Vallely, F. ed. 2011: Companion to Irish Traditional Music, second edition,Cork University Press
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiberno-English
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killaloe_March