True-colour satellite image of Ireland, known in Irish as Éire.

Éire (ⁱ/ˈɛərə/; Irish: [ˈeːɾʲə] ( listen)) is the Irish name for the island of Ireland and the sovereign state of the same name.

Etymology[link]

The modern Irish Éire evolved from the Old Irish word Ériu, which was the name of a Gaelic goddess. Ériu is generally believed to have been the matron goddess of Ireland, a goddess of sovereignty, or simply a goddess of the land. The origin of Ériu has been traced to the Proto-Celtic reconstruction *Φīwerjon- (nominative singular Φīwerjū < Pre-Proto-Celtic -jō).^[1] This suggests a descent from the Proto-Indo-European reconstruction *piHwerjon-, likely related to the adjectival stem *piHwer- (cf. Sanskrit pīvan, pīvarī and pīvara meaning "fat, full, abounding"). This would suggest a meaning of "abundant land".

This Proto-Celtic form became Īweriū or Īveriū in Proto-Goidelic.^[2] It is highly likely that explorers borrowed and modified this term. During his exploration of northwest Europe (circa 320 BCE), Pytheas of Massilia called the island Ierne (written Ἰέρνη). In his book Geographia (circa 150 CE), Claudius Ptolemaeus called the island Iouernia (written Ἰουερνία). Based on these historical accounts, the Roman Empire called the island Hibernia.

Thus, the evolution of the word would follow as such:

• Proto-Celtic *Φīwerjon- (nominative singular *Φīwerjū)
  • Proto-Goidelic *Īweriū or *Īveriū
    • Old Irish Ériu
      • Modern Irish Éire

Another etymology is from the Gaelic:

• ì (island) + thairr (west) + fónn (land), which together give ì-iar-fhónn, or "westland isle"^[3]

This is similar in meaning to the Norse name for Irish people, "west men", which subsequently gave its name to the Icelandic island of Vestmannaeyjar.

[edit] Difference between Éire and Erin

While Éire is simply the name for Ireland in the Irish language, and sometimes used in English, Erin is a common poetic name for Ireland, as in Erin go bragh. The distinction between the two is one of the difference between cases of nouns in Irish. Éire is the nominative case, the case that (in the modern Gaelic languages) is used for nouns that are the subject of a sentence i.e. the noun that is doing something as well as the direct object of a sentence. Erin derives from Éirinn (pronounced [ˈeːɾʲɪɲ] ( listen)), the Irish dative case of Éire, which has replaced the nominative case in Déise Irish (and some non-standard sub-dialects elsewhere), in Scottish Gaelic (where the usual word for Ireland is Èirinn) and Manx (a form of Gaelic), where the word is spelled Nerin, with the initial n- is probably in origin a fossilisation of the preposition in/an "in" (cf. Irish in Éirinn, Scottish an Èirinn/ann an Èirinn "in Ireland"). The genitive case Éireann is used in the Gaelic forms of the titles of companies and institutions in Ireland e.g. Iarnród Éireann (Irish Rail), Dáil Éireann (Irish Parliament) or Poblacht na hÉireann (The Republic of Ireland).

Éire as a state name[link]

Article 4 of the Irish constitution adopted in 1937 states that Éire is the name of the state, except in the English language, where it is Ireland.^[4] The Constitution's English-language preamble also described the population as "We, the people of Éire". Despite the fact that Article 8 designated Irish as the "national" and "first official" language, Éire has to some extent passed out of everyday conversation and literature, and the state is referred to as Ireland or its equivalent in all other languages.

The name "Éire" has been used on Irish postage stamps since 1922;^[5] on all Irish coinage (including Irish euro coins); and together with "Ireland" on passports and other official state documents issued since 1937. "Éire" is used on the Seal of the President of Ireland. Before the 1937 Constitution, "Saorstát Éireann" (the Irish name of the Irish Free State) was generally used.

Irish Oak torpedoed mid-Atlantic, oil by Kenneth King, showing "EIRE" prominently

During the Emergency (as World War II was known), Irish ships had "EIRE" (and the Irish tricolour) painted large on their sides and deck, to identify them as neutrals.

In 1922–1938 the international plate on Irish cars was "SE". From 1938 to 1962 it was marked "EIR", short for Éire. In 1961 statutory instrument no. 269 allowed "IRL",^[6] and by 1962 "IRL" had been adopted. Irish politician Bernard Commons TD suggested to the Dáil in 1950 that the government examine "the tourist identification plate bearing the letters EIR ... with a view to the adoption of identification letters more readily associated with this country by foreigners".^[7] "EIR" is also shown in other legislation such as the car insurance statutory instrument no. 383 of 1952 and no. 82 of 1958.^[8][9]

Under the 1947 Convention Irish-registered aircraft have carried a registration mark starting "EI" for Éire.

From January 2007, the Irish government nameplates at meetings of the European Union have borne both Éire and Ireland, following the adoption of Irish as a working language of the European Union.

Use of Eire in Britain and the USA[link]

In 1938 the British government provided in the Eire (Confirmation of Agreements) Act 1938 that British legislation could henceforth refer to the Irish Free State as "Eire" (but not as "Éire"). The 1938 Act was repealed in 1981, and the term is now rarely used in modern British English.^[10] It is still seen on some airport signage in 2011: Liverpool John Lennon Airport has an arrivals area for "Eire and Channel Islands".

"Eire" is generally deplored by Irish language speakers, partly because it is a misspelling and partly because "eire" can also mean a burden, load or encumbrance, giving a slightly pejorative nuance to the name of the island and/or the state.^[11]

Founded in 1937, the Eire Society of Boston is an influential Irish-American group.^[12]

Other uses[link]

Éire has also been incorporated into the names of Irish commercial and social entities, such as Eircom Group plc (formerly "Telecom Éireann") and its former mobile phone network, Eircell.^[13] In 2006 the Irish electricity network was devolved to EirGrid. The company "BetEire Flow" (eFlow), named as a pun on "better", is a French consortium running the electronic tolling system at the West-Link bridge west of Dublin.^[14] According to the Dublin Companies Registration Office in 2008, over 500 company names incorporate the word Éire in some form.^[15]

Sometimes the incorporation is humorous or ironic, such as the pop group named "ScaryÉire",^[16] or Cormac Ó Gráda's "Éirvana" paper in 2007 on the Celtic Tiger economy.^[17]

Footnotes[link]

Bibliography[link]

Look up Éire in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Noel Browne, Against the Tide
• Constitution of Ireland (1937)
• Stephen Collins, The Cosgrave Legacy
• Tim Pat Coogan, De Valera (Hutchinson, 1993)
• Brian Farrell, De Valera's Constitution and Ours
• F.S.L. Lyons, Ireland since the Famine
• David Gwynn Morgan, Constitutional Law of Ireland
• Tim Murphy and Patrick Twomey (eds.) Ireland's Evolving Constitution: 1937–1997 Collected Essays (Hart, 1998) ISBN 1-901362-17-5
• Alan J. Ward, The Irish Constitutional Tradition: Responsible Government and Modern Ireland 1782–1992 (Irish Academic Press, 1994) ISBN 0-7165-2528-3

Patrick Henry Pearse Pádraig Anraí Mac Piarais
Born	(1879-11-10)10 November 1879 Dublin, Ireland
Died	3 May 1916(1916-05-03) (aged 36) Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin, Ireland
Allegiance	Irish Republican Brotherhood Irish Volunteers Irish Republican Army[1]
Years of service	1913–1916
Rank	Commander-in-chief Supreme Council IRB Military Committee IRB
Campaign	Easter Rising
Other work	Educator, Principal, Barrister, Republican activist, Poet

Patrick Henry Pearse (also known as Pádraig Pearse; Irish: Pádraig Anraí Mac Piarais; An Piarsach; 10 November 1879 – 3 May 1916) was an Irish teacher, barrister, poet, writer, nationalist and political activist who was one of the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916. He was declared "President of the Provisional Government" of the Irish Republic in one of the bulletins issued by the Rising's leaders, a status that was however disputed by others associated with the rebellion both then and later. Following the collapse of the Rising and the execution of Pearse, his brother (Willie Pearse), and fourteen other leaders, Pearse came to be seen by many as the embodiment of the rebellion.

Early life and influences[link]

27 Pearse Street, birthplace of Patrick and Willie Pearse

Patrick Pearse and his brother Willie were born at 27 Great Brunswick Street,^[2] the street that is named after them today.^[3] It was here that their father, James Pearse, established a stonemasonry business in the 1850s,^[4] a business which flourished and provided the Pearses with a comfortable middle-class upbringing.^[5] Pearse's father was a mason and monumental sculptor, and originally a Unitarian from Birmingham in England.^[6]

The home life of Patrick Pearse was one where he was surrounded by books.^[7] His father had very little formal education, but he was a self-educated man.^[8] He had two children from his first marriage, Emily and James (two other children died in infancy). His second wife, Margaret Brady was a native of Dublin, but her father's family were from County Meath and were native Irish speakers. The Irish-speaking influence of Pearse's great-aunt Margaret, together with his schooling at the CBS Westland Row, instilled in him an early love for the Irish language.

In 1896, at the age of sixteen, he joined the Gaelic League (Conradh na Gaeilge), and in 1903 at the age of 23, he became editor of its newspaper An Claidheamh Soluis ("The Sword of Light").

Pearse's earlier heroes were the ancient Gaelic folk heroes such as Cúchulainn, though in his 30s he began to take a strong interest in the leaders of past republican movements, such as the United Irishmen Theobald Wolfe Tone and Robert Emmet. Both had been Protestant, but it was from such men as these that the fervently Catholic Pearse drew inspiration for the rebellion of 1916.

In 1900, Pearse was awarded a BA in Modern Languages (Irish, English and French) by the Royal University of Ireland, he had studied for two years privately and for one at University College Dublin. In 1900 he was also awarded the degree of Barrister-at-Law from the King's Inns^[9], and was called to the bar in 1901.

St Enda's[link]

As a cultural nationalist educated by the Irish Christian Brothers, like his younger brother Willie, Pearse believed that language was intrinsic to the identity of a nation. The Irish school system, he believed, raised Ireland's youth to be good Englishmen or obedient Irishmen, and an alternative was needed. Thus for him and other language revivalists, saving the Irish language from extinction was a cultural priority of the utmost importance. The key to saving the language, he felt, would be a sympathetic education system. To show the way, he started his own bilingual school, St. Enda's School (Scoil Éanna) in Rathfarnham, County Dublin, in 1908. Here, the pupils were taught in both the Irish and English languages.

With the aid of Thomas MacDonagh, Pearse's younger brother Willie Pearse and other (often transient) academics, it soon proved a successful experiment. He did all he planned, and even brought students on field trips to the Gaeltacht in the west of Ireland. Pearse's restless idealism led him in search of an even more idyllic home for his school. He found it in the Hermitage, Rathfarnham, where he moved St. Enda's in 1910. Pearse was also involved in the foundation of St. Ita's school for girls, a school with similar aims to St. Enda's.

However, the new home, while splendidly located in an 18th-century house surrounded by a park and woodlands, caused financial difficulties that almost brought him to disaster. He strove continually to keep ahead of his debts while doing his best to maintain the school. In February 1914, he travelled to the USA to raise money for his ailing school where he met John Devoy and Joseph McGarrity both of whom were impressed by his fervour and supported him in raising sufficient money to secure the continued existence of the school.

The Volunteers and Home Rule[link]

In April 1912, the prospect of self-government for Ireland under a new Home Rule for Ireland Bill became reality, as John Redmond leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, who held the balance of power in the House of Commons committed the government of the United Kingdom to introduce the Bill. Pearse’s attitude towards the Bill was remarkably ambivalent.

Pearse moved from welcoming the Bill, asking all sides to support Redmond’s praiseworthy achievement to demanding a better Bill with the public warning Let the Gall understand that if we are cheated this time there will be red war in Ireland.^[10] Pearse was one of four speakers, including Redmond, Joseph Devlin MP, leader of the Northern Nationalists, and Eoin MacNeill a prominent Gaelic Leaguer, who addressed a large Home Rule Rally in Dublin on a public platform at the end of March 1913. Speaking in Irish Pearse threatened revolution if the Bill were not enacted.^[11]

In November 1913 Pearse was invited to the inaugural meeting of the Irish Volunteers, formed to enforce the implementation of the Third Home Rule Act passed by the House of Commons in the face of opposition from the Ulster Volunteers. In an article entitled “The Coming Revolution” (November 1913) Pearse wrote

The bill just failed to pass the House of Lords, but the Lord’s diminished power under the Parliament Act 1911 meant that the bill could only be delayed and was finally placed on the statute books with Royal Assent in September 1914, but suspended for the duration of World War I, whose context set the backdrop for events to follow.

John Redmond, leader of the IPP, feared his “national authority” might be circumvented by the Volunteers and decided to control the new movement. Despite opposition from the Irish Republican Brotherhood members, the Volunteer Executive agreed to share leadership with Redmond and a joint committee was set up. Pearse was opposed to this and was to write:^[12]

The Volunteers split, one of the issues being support for the Allied and British war effort, a majority following Redmond in the National Volunteers in the belief that this would ensure Home Rule on their return. Pearse, exhilarated by the dramatic events of the European war wrote in an article written in December 1915 on patriotism:

The IRB and the Irish Republic[link]

Proclamation of the Irish Republic, read by Pádraig Pearse outside the GPO at the start of the Easter Rising, 1916.

In December 1913, Bulmer Hobson swore Pearse into the secret Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB),^[14] an organisation dedicated to the overthrow of British rule in Ireland and its replacement with an Irish Republic. He was soon co-opted onto the IRB's Supreme Council by Tom Clarke.^[15] Pearse was then one of many people who were members of both the IRB and the Volunteers. When he became the Volunteers' Director of Military Organisation in 1914^[16] he was the highest ranking Volunteer in the IRB membership, and instrumental in the latter's commandeering of the remaining minority of the Volunteers for the purpose of rebellion. By 1915 he was on the IRB's Supreme Council, and its secret Military Council, the core group that began planning for a rising while war raged on the European Western Front.

On 1 August 1915, Pearse gave a now-famous graveside oration at the funeral of the Fenian Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa. It closed with the words:

Easter Rising and death[link]

Pearse, given his speaking and writing skills, was chosen by the leading IRB man Tom Clarke to be the spokesman for the Rising. It was Pearse who, in behalf of the IRB shortly before Easter in 1916, issued the orders to all Volunteer units throughout the country for three days of manoeuvres beginning Easter Sunday, which was the signal for a general uprising. When Eoin MacNeill, the Chief of Staff of the Volunteers, learned what was being planned without the promised arms from Germany, he countermanded the orders via newspaper, causing the IRB to issue a last minute order to go through with the plan the following day, greatly limiting the numbers who turned out for the rising.

When the Easter Rising eventually erupted on Easter Monday, 24 April 1916, there never was any plan for a military victory in the minds of the leaders. It was Pearse who proclaimed a Republic from the steps of the General Post Office and headquarters of the revolutionaries. After six days fighting, heavy civilian casualties and great destruction of property, Pearse issued the order to surrender along with the remaining leaders.

Pearse and fourteen other leaders, including his brother Willie, were court-martialled and executed by firing squad. Sir Roger Casement, who had tried unsuccessfully to recruit an insurgent force among Irish-born prisoners of war from the Irish Brigade in Germany, was hanged in London the following August. Thomas Clarke, Thomas MacDonagh and Pearse himself were the first of the rebels to be executed, on the morning of 3 May 1916. Pearse was 36 years old at the time of his death.

Sir John Maxwell, the General Officer commanding the British forces in Ireland, sent a telegram to H.H. Asquith, then Prime Minister, advising him not to return the bodies of Pádraig and Willie Pearse to their family, saying: "Irish sentimentality will turn these graves into martyrs’ shrines to which annual processions will be made which would cause constant irritation in this country.^[17]

Maxwell also suppressed a letter from Pearse to his mother,^[18] and two poems dated 1 May 1916. He submitted copies of them also to Prime Minister Asquith, saying that some of the content was "objectionable."^[17]

In addition that document used the term "President of the Provisional Government", not "President of the Republic". A "President of a government" is akin to a prime minister, not a president of a state.^[19] Pearse and his colleagues also discussed proclaiming Prince Joachim (the Kaiser's youngest son) as an Irish constitutional monarch, if the Central Powers won the First World War, which suggests that their ideas for the political future of the country had to await the war's outcome.^[20]

Writings[link]

Bust of Pádraig Pearse in Tralee, County Kerry.

Pearse wrote stories and poems in both Irish and English. His best-known English poems include "The Mother", "The Fool" and "The Wayfarer".^[21] He also penned several allegorical plays in the Irish language, including The King, The Master, and The Singer. His short stories in Irish include Eoghainín na nÉan ("Eoineen of the Birds"), Íosagán,"An Gadaí" Na Bóithre ("The Roads"), and An Bhean Chaointe ("The Keening Woman"). These are translated into English by Joseph Campbell (in the Collected Works of 1917).^[22] Most of his ideas on education are contained in his famous essay "The Murder Machine". He also authored many essays on politics and language, notably "The Coming Revolution" and "Ghosts".

Pearse is closely associated with the song, "Oró Sé do Bheatha 'Bhaile", for which he composed additional lyrics.

Reputation[link]

Largely, as a result of a series of political pamphlets Pearse wrote in the months leading up to the 1916 Rising, he soon became recognised as the voice of the 1916 Rising. In the middle decades of the 20th century, Pearse was idolised by Irish nationalists as the supreme idealist of their cause. However, with the outbreak of conflict in Northern Ireland in 1969, Pearse's legacy was used by the Provisional IRA. Pearse's reputation and writings were subject to criticism by some historians who saw him as a dangerous, fanatical, psychologically unsound individual under ultra-religious influences. As Conor Cruise O'Brien, onetime Labour TD and former unionist politician, put it in writing: "Pearse saw the Rising as a Passion Play with real blood."

Others defended Pearse, suggesting that to blame him for what was happening in Northern Ireland was unhistorical and a distortion of the real spirit of his writings. Though the passion of those arguments has waned with the continuing peace in Northern Ireland following the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, his complex personality still remains a subject of controversy for those who wish to debate the evolving meaning of Irish nationalism.

Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern described Pearse as one of his heroes and displayed a picture of Pearse over his desk in the Department of the Taoiseach.^[23]

His former school, St. Enda's, Rathfarnham, on the south side of Dublin, is now the Pearse Museum dedicated to his memory. Cullenswood House, the old Pearse family house in Ranelagh, where Padraig first founded St. Enda's, today houses a primary Gaelscoil (school for education through the Irish language) called Lios na nÓg, part of a community-based effort to revive the Irish language. In Ballymun the Patrick Pearse Tower was named after him. It was the first of Ballymun's tower blocks to be demolished in 2004.^{[citation needed]}

Pearse's mother Margaret Pearse served as a TD in Dáil Éireann in the 1920s. His sister Margaret Mary Pearse also served as a TD and Senator.

Commemoration[link]

Pearse Street was renamed in honour of the Pearses. Westland Row Station in Dublin was renamed as Pearse Station in 1966 after Pearse and his brother Willie. The Ten shilling coin minted in 1966 featured the bust of Patrick Pearse. The coin is unique among Irish coinage in that it is the sole coin to feature the bust of anyone associated with Irish history or politics.

Footnotes[link]

Sources[link]

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Author:Patrick Pearse

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Patrick Pearse

• Joost Augusteijn, Patrick Pearse, 2009.
• Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins. Hutchinson, 1990.
• Ruth Dudley Edwards, Patrick Pearse: the Triumph of Failure. London: Gollancz, 1977.
• F.S.L. Lyons, Ireland Since the Famine. London: Collins/Fontana, 1973.
• Dorothy Macardle, The Irish Republic. Corgi, 1968.
• Arthur Mitchell & Pádraig Ó Snodaigh, Irish Political Documents 1916–1949. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1985
• Sean Farrell Moran, "Patrick Pearse and the Politics of Redemption: The Mind of the Easter Rising 1916." Washington, Catholic University Press, 1994
• Mary Pearse, The Home Life of Pádraig Pearse. Cork: Mercier, 1971.
• Patrick Pearse, Short Stories. Trans. Joseph Campbell. Ed. Anne Markey. Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2009

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Patrick Pearse

• Patrick's census information from 1911 while he was still teaching in St. Enda's School
• Patrick's census form part-A
• The Murder Machine – Pearse's groundbreaking article on Montessori education
• 1916 Walking Tour piece on Pearse
• The Poetry of Pádraig Pearse
• ^[dead link] Music Video for the song Pádraig Pearse by the Wolfe Tones

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (February 2010)

Phil Coulter (born 19 February 1942) is a musician and producer. His career has spanned four decades and he is one of the biggest record sellers in Ireland.^{[citation needed]} The Derry composer was awarded the Gold Badge from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA) in October 2009.

Coulter has won 23 Platinum Discs, 39 Gold Discs, 52 Silver Discs, two Grand Prix Eurovision awards; five Ivor Novello Awards, which includes Songwriter of the Year; three American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers awards; a Grammy Nomination; a Meteor Award, a National Entertainment Award and a Rose d’or d’Antibes.^[1]

Early years[link]

Coulter is from Derry in Northern Ireland where his father was a Royal Ulster Constabulary police officer, one of the 10% Catholic constables in the force.^{[citation needed]} He grew up with his two brothers and two sisters.

Coulter's father, also called Phil, encouraged music in the house. He played the fiddle whilst his wife played the upright piano. The younger Coulter recalls this piano, made by Challen, as "the most important piece of furniture in the house". “I always stayed away from the fiddle, having inflicted enough pain on my family with the piano,” he laughed. Coulter confesses that he came close to abandoning the piano at an early age. “The truth is I hated the piano at first. I’d love to say I was a natural but I wasn’t. I hated playing it and I hated my music teacher. My father, who was a canny man, told me, ‘We have to scrimp and save to pay for these lessons, you might as well give them up.’ “It wasn’t long before I gravitated back to the piano, trying to play the songs that I was listening to on the radio. I always wondered what my left hand was supposed to be doing though. But after two or three years at St. Columb’s College I began thinking of the piano as an extension of myself.”^{[citation needed]}

One of Coulter's most popular songs, "The Town I Loved So Well", deals with the embattled city of his youth, filled with "that damned barbed wire" during the Troubles. 'It is the one I anguished most over, the one which had to earn respect and perhaps the most auto-biographical tune I have ever written’ “The roots of that song go very, very deep, it took time for it to win respect and integrity. That song defines an era and a place that is very dear to my heart.”^{[citation needed]}

Education[link]

Coulter spent his secondary school years at St. Columb's College. He later studied music and French at the Queen's University of Belfast (QUB). Coulter has received honorary doctorates from the University of Ulster and Dublin Institute of Technology.

Beginnings of a career in music[link]

He started his first band at Queen's University, playing early rock and roll music despite studying classical music. Coulter was also founder of the Glee Club, which staged music events for the university. By 1964, his final year at university, Coulter had already written a couple of hit songs in Ireland and he moved to London, where his first job was as an arranger/songwriter with a music publisher in Denmark Street. From here he was hired to work with name acts including Billy Connolly, Van Morrison, Jerry Lee Lewis and Tom Jones.

Songwriting partnership with Bill Martin[link]

In the late 1960s Coulter formed a long-lasting writing partnership with Bill Martin. They wrote Sandie Shaw's 1967 Eurovision-winning entry, "Puppet on a String", which would go on to become an international hit with more than 100 cover versions. They had a second hit the next year with a song for Cliff Richard called "Congratulations", which finished second at Eurovision. A Spanish documentary in 2008 however revealed that Cliff Richard had been robbed of victory after General Francisco Franco fixed the vote.^[2] Seven years later Coulter found himself back on the Eurovision stage when he co wrote, together with Pierre Cour, the song "Toi" for Luxembourg: the song, which was performed by Coulter's future wife Geraldine, came fifth in Stockholm. Coulter and Martin later wrote the song "Shine It On", which would finish third in the 1978 heat of A Song for Europe, performed by the Glaswegian performer "Christian".

The duo wrote numerous hit songs for a variety of popular singers in the 1960s and 1970s, including "My Boy" for Elvis Presley and many of the Bay City Rollers' hits: they also contributed incidental music to the 1967 Spider-Man television series.

Sideman and producer[link]

As well as writing hit singles, Coulter produced three ground-breaking albums with Planxty, which would have an influence on modern Irish music. Christy Moore wrote:

"With no competition he gave us a shite contract and we signed everything away. All that said, 30 years on this album sounds good. He produced it well and ... (he had) the foresight and wherewithal to record the band at a time when no one else was listening.^[3]

In addition to writing hits for the Bay City Rollers, Coulter also wrote songs for several other teenybop bands of the 1970s, including Kenny and Slik, and appeared as a production credit on "Automatic Lover" by Dee D. Jackson.

Coulter produced, arranged and wrote most of the late Joe Dolan 1983 album, Here and Now. The album featured several hit singles, including the Irish Top Ten hit "Deeper and Deeper" which remained a staple in Dolan's live sets and was also one of the last songs he performed before he became ill on stage during what turned out to be his last ever show in Abbeyleix. The album was released in South Africa as "Yours Faithfully" where it went to number one within one week of release.^{[citation needed]}

In 2007, Coulter joined with Sharon Browne, one of the originators of the successful Celtic Woman production, to collaborate on formation of a male version of that production called "Celtic Thunder". A stage production at The Helix in Dublin was released on DVD as Celtic Thunder: The Show and went to the top of the Amazon and Billboard Top World Albums chart in 2008. Many of the tracks in the show, such as "That's a Woman" and "Heartbreaker", were written by Coulter.

Solo success[link]

In 1984 Coulter launched himself as an artist in his own right and began by releasing a solo instrumental album called Classic Tranquility. His follow-up, Sea of Tranquility, became the second-best selling album of all time in Ireland.^{[citation needed]} It peaked at #46 in the UK Albums Chart, and remained in the chart for fourteen weeks.^[4] The follow-up album, Phil Coulter's Ireland reached #86 in the UK.^[4] He moved from London back to Ireland, where he established his music publishing company on the grounds of his house in Bray, south of Dublin. Coulter's official website notes that he has some 23 platinum records, 39 gold and 52 silver albums. He also keeps one of the walls of his office blank, "to remind me that there’s still room for a lot more."^[5]

In 2001 he was nominated for a Grammy Award in the "New Age" category for his album Highland Cathedral. At the age of 67, he continues to be a popular performer in his native country and around the world in places such as The White House and Carnegie Hall.

Politics[link]

In 2002, Coulter was encouraged by the Save the Swilly organisation to run for Dáil in order to protect Lough Swilly from aquacultural destruction. After some deliberation, he concluded that work and family commitments would not allow him the time necessary to fill the political position. Some^[who?] say that the passing of his priest brother Joseph at that time had a significant influence on his decision.^{[citation needed]}

Sport[link]

Coulter is a former president of Derry City Football Club and is known to be a supporter of the club, having attempted to help the club with its financial problems in the early 2000s. He has also helped Derry City's local rivals, Finn Harps, in their time of need.

In 1995, the Irish Rugby Football Union commissioned Coulter to write a politically neutral anthem for the Ireland national rugby union team, which represents both Northern Ireland and Ireland. The result was "Ireland's Call", which is played alongside of, and in some cases instead of, Amhrán na bhFiann. As well as being used by both the Ireland national rugby union team and the junior national teams, "Ireland's Call" has since also been adopted by the Ireland's national hockey, cricket and rugby league teams.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Phil Coulter discography at Discogs

Sir Arnold Edward Trevor Bax, KCVO (8 November 1883 – 3 October 1953) was an English composer and poet. His musical style blended elements of romanticism and impressionism, often with influences from Irish literature and landscape. His orchestral scores are noted for their complexity and colourful instrumentation. Bax’s poetry and stories, which he wrote under the pseudonym of Dermot O’Byrne, reflect his profound affinity with Irish poet W. B. Yeats and are largely written in the tradition of the Irish Literary Revival.

Life[link]

Early years[link]

Bax was born in Pendennis Road, Streatham, London, into a Victorian upper-middle-class family of Dutch descent. He grew up in Ivy Bank, a mansion on top of Haverstock Hill, Hampstead, where he attended Heath Mount School.^[1] In Bax, A Composer and His Times (2007) Lewis Foreman suggests that, because of the family affluence, Bax never had to take a paid position and was free to pursue most of his interests. From an early age, he showed that he had a powerful intellect and great musical talent, especially at the keyboard. He often enjoyed playing the Wagner operas on piano. One of his first intimate meetings with art music was through Tristan und Isolde and its influence is seen in many of his later works, Tintagel for example. Bax was taught at home, but received his first formal musical education at age 16 from Cecil Sharp and others at the Hampstead Conservatoire. He was accepted to the Royal Academy of Music in 1900, where he remained until 1905. At the Academy, he was taught composition by Frederick Corder, the piano by Tobias Matthay and the clarinet by Egerton. In his composition classes, Corder emphasized the examples of Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner and pointed to their liberal approach to classical form, which led Bax to develop a similar attitude. He had an exceptional ability to sight-read and play complex orchestral scores at the piano, which won him several medals at the Academy and he also won prizes for best musical composition, including the Battison-Haynes prize and the competitive Charles Lucas Medal.

Bax discovers Ireland[link]

Bax had a sensitive and searching soul and drew inspiration from a wide range of sources. He was a voracious reader of literature and in this way he happened upon William Butler Yeats's The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems in 1902. He proved highly receptive to the soft, melancholy moods of the Irish Literary Revival and found in Yeats a powerful muse, from which he derived a lifetime of inspiration. He developed an infatuation with Ireland and began travelling extensively there. He visited the most isolated and secluded places, eventually discovering the little Donegal village Glencolumbkille, to which he returned annually for almost 30 years. Here, he drew inspiration from the landscape and the sea, and from the culture and life of the local Irish peasants, many of whom he regarded as close friends. His encounter with the poetry of Yeats and the landscapes of Ireland resulted in many new works, both musical and literary. The String Quartet in E (1903), which later was worked into the orchestral tone poem Cathaleen-Ni-Houlihan (1905), is a fine example of how he began to reflect Ireland in his music. Not only did he emerge as a surprisingly mature composer with these works, he also developed in them floating and undulating 'impressionistic' musical textures using orchestral techniques not yet heard — not even from Claude Debussy. Many of the works he wrote in the period from 1903 to 1916 can be seen as musical counterparts to the Irish Literary Revival. The tone-poems Into The Twilight (1908), In The Faery Hills (1909) and Rosc-catha [Battle hymn] (1910) echo the themes of the Revival and especially the soft, dreamy mood of many poems and stories.

Conglomerate of influences[link]

Arnold Bax (front, right) in the 1920s.

The Irish influence is only one of many found in Bax's music. An early affinity with Norway and the literature of Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson brought themes and moods from the Nordic countries into his music. From 1905 to 1911, Bax constantly alternated between using Nordic and Celtic themes in his compositions. He even attempted to teach himself some Norwegian and, in the song The Flute (1907) for voice and piano, he successfully set an original poem by Bjørnson to music. Later examples of Bax’s Nordic affinity include Hardanger for two pianos (1927) and the orchestral tone-poem The Tale the Pine-Trees Knew (1931).

In 1910, a youthful fling with a Ukrainian girl, Natalia Skarginska, brought Bax to St. Petersburg, Moscow and Lubny, near Kiev, which led to a fascination for Russian and Slavonic themes. The relationship with Skarginska resulted in an emotional agony from which he never completely recovered. His conflicting feelings are perhaps reflected in the First Piano Sonata in F sharp (1910, revised 1917-20). The Russian and Ukrainian influence can also be heard in two works for solo piano from 1912, Nocturne–May Night in the Ukraine and Gopak (Russian dance).

In 1915 appeared In a Vodka Shop also for solo piano. In 1919, Bax was one of four British composers to be commissioned to write orchestral music to serve as interludes at Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in London. For the commission, he incorporated the three above-mentioned piano works of Russian themes into Russian Suite for orchestra. In 1920, he wrote incidental music to J. M. Barrie’s whimsical play The Truth About the Russian Dancers, his last work based on a clearly Russian theme. The Russian influence may be found in many of Bax's other scores and is especially predominant in his first three symphonies.

Rathgar circle[link]

In January 1911, not long after he returned to Britain, Bax married Elsita Sobrino, a childhood friend. They settled in Bushy Park Road, Rathgar, Dublin. Here Bax’s brother Clifford introduced them to the intellectual circle which met at the house of the poet, painter and mystic George William Russell. Bax had already had some of his poems and short stories published in Dublin and to the circle he was simply known by the pseudonym Dermot O’Byrne (the name was possibly inspired by a renowned family of traditional musicians in Donegal).

As Dermot O’Byrne, he was specifically noted for Seafoam and Firelight, published in London by the Orpheus Press in 1909 and numerous short stories and poems published in different media in Dublin. It was at Russell’s house where Bax one night met Irish Republican Patrick Pearse. According to Bax, they got on very well and, although they met only once, the execution of Pearse following the Easter Rebellion in 1916 prompted him to compose several laments, the most noted being In Memoriam Patric Pearse (1916), which contains the dedication ‘I gCuimhne ar Phádraig Mac Piarais’.

Alienation, conflict and success[link]

The threat of war led to the dissolution of the Rathgar Circle as many members fled Ireland and Europe. Bax and his family returned to London; it was the loss of a blissful life. A heart condition prevented Bax from enlisting, and he spent the war years composing profusely. Although World War I unleashed previously unimagined horrors upon the world, it was the Easter Rebellion and the destruction of Dublin that especially disturbed Bax.

As his Ireland — a haven and a retreat — was lost to bitter conflict and war, he sought refuge in a liaison with the younger pianist Harriet Cohen. What had started out as a purely professional alliance — Cohen playing and championing Bax's piano music — developed into a passionate relationship. Yet their love could not be sanctioned by the contemporary social code, which brought to both parties considerable emotional suffering.

This difficult period in Bax’s life led to the composition of several attractive tone-poems, including Summer Music (1916), Tintagel (1917) and November Woods (1914–1917). In Tintagel, Bax reached back to legends and dreams — specifically that of the doomed lovers Tristan and Isolde. Tintagel is undoubtedly the best known of Bax’s tone-poems and includes a colourful evocation of the sea. Bax's relationship with Cohen led some commentators to assume a Freudian link between Bax’s alleged sexual passion and the sea-theme in Tintagel.

However, the opening of Harriet Cohen's private papers and the research into them by scholars, such as the Norwegian musicologist Thomas Elnaes, indicates that such a link is at best speculative. Bax's works from this time reflect deep psychological conflicts that point forward to the passionate yet deeply troubled First Symphony in E flat, completed in 1922. After the war, British music was in demand as never before in England; and Bax won considerable fame with his works, which were widely performed.

Morar period[link]

From 1928 onwards, Bax ceased to travel to Glencolumbkille and instead began his annual migration to Morar, in the west Scottish Highlands, to work. He would sketch his compositions in London and take them to the Station Hotel at Morar for the winter, in order to orchestrate them. At this time, he found a new love in Mary Gleaves; and she accompanied him to Scotland.

In the Morar period, which lasted until the outbreak of World War II, Bax rediscovered his interest in Norway and the Nordic countries, and found a new musical hero in Sibelius. At Morar, he orchestrated Symphonies Nos. 3 to 7 and several of his finest orchestral works, including the three Northern Ballads (No. 5 is actually dedicated to Sibelius and shares something of his stylistic austerity).

All seven of Bax's symphonies were composed within a relatively short span of time (1922-39) and are perhaps the most coherent cycle of symphonies by any composer. They reflect his many influences and are profound works of art with a deep psychological dimension tied to evocations of scenery. The symphonies earned Bax a reputation as the successor to Elgar, as Vaughan Williams, for instance, had only completed four symphonies by the time Bax had completed his seventh (Vaughan Williams's fourth is actually dedicated to Bax).

Peter Pan of composers[link]

Bax received a knighthood in 1937 (Knight Bachelor), but he was not entirely prepared to enjoy this honour. He contended that there was a conflict between the knighthood and his profound affinity with Ireland, but accepted nonetheless. A feeling that his creative energies were drained started to manifest itself. Bax explained to his friends that he felt tired, restless and lonely. He contended that he had a hard time ‘growing up’. His increasing age depressed him, and he started to drink heavily. He also felt alienated by the new modernistic fashions in music, and realised, to his sorrow, that his style was falling out of critical favour.

In 1938 appeared his Violin Concerto. It was written for Jascha Heifetz, who disliked it and never played it; instead, it was premiered in 1942 by Eda Kersey (1904-1944).^[2]

In 1942, Bax was appointed Master of the King's Musick, a decision the British musical establishment was not altogether happy with. To many, Bax was an atypical English composer, some especially pointing to the 'Irishness' of his music.

Of his later works, only the film scores for Malta G.C. and Oliver Twist were really successful. They earned Bax a renewed (and deserved) public acclaim, but their popularity could not compensate for his being considered old-fashioned by many younger composers and critics. He retreated from the public scene and lived quietly at The White Horse Hotel in Storrington, Sussex.

Ireland reaches out[link]

In 1929, Feis Maitiú Corcaigh, a prestigious music festival organized by the Capuchin Fathers, invited Bax to become adjudicator. It was Irish pianist Tilly Fleischmann who suggested him, knowing that he was familiar with Ireland and Irish conditions. This was also the first time Bax met Irish musicians in Ireland, other than folk musicians. In Cork, he was introduced to such outstanding musicians as the pianist Charles Lynch and singer Maura O'Connor, both of whom went on to give many performances of Bax’s music.

Bax’s first visit to Cork marked the beginning of a 24-year friendship with the Fleischmann family. As performances of Bax’s music grew increasingly rare in Britain, Tilly Fleischmann demonstrated to Bax that his music had wide appeal in Ireland. Bax, however, did little to act on this, or to support further efforts; and his music was not heard nationwide in Ireland until Aloys Fleischmann began conducting his orchestral works with the Irish Radio Orchestra in Dublin just after the end of the war. In 1946, Bax became external examiner with both University College Cork and University College Dublin, and he also gave individual tuition to aspiring young Irish composers. He received an honorary doctorate degree from the National University of Ireland in 1947.

In 1953, Bax was further honoured by appointment as a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO), an honour within the Queen's personal gift. He died during a visit to the Fleischmanns later that year, possibly from a complication of his heart condition. One of his last compositions was Coronation March for Queen Elizabeth II.

Not long before he died, Bax was asked by the editor of the The World of Music which were his own preferred works. He provided the following selection:

• The Garden of Fand (1916)
• Symphony No. 3 (1929)
• Winter Legends (1930)
• The Tale the Pine Trees Knew (1931)
• Symphony No. 6 (1935)

On another occasion, he said, of his Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, which had been commissioned by and dedicated to Gaspar Cassadó, "The fact that nobody has ever taken up this work has been one of the major disappointments of my musical life".^[3]

He died at age 69 and was interred in St. Finbarr's Cemetery, Cork.

Research and scholarship[link]

The first biography of Bax was Colin Scott-Sutherland’s Arnold Bax, published in 1973. It offers a description of Bax's life and some insightful analysis of his music, especially the large-scale works. Scott-Sutherland also published the works of Dermot O'Byrne (Bax's literary pseudonym): Ideala: Poems and Some Early Love Letters of Arnold Bax including the Collected Poems of Dermot O'Byrne (2001). Bax’s principal biographer, however, is the English writer Lewis Foreman. Foreman's first major contribution to Bax scholarship was a 1983 biography entitled Bax, A Composer and His Times. A second edition appeared in 1988 and a third edition in February 2007.

The principal primary source for information regarding Bax’s life and philosophy is his anecdotal autobiography Farewell My Youth (1943), which, for personal reasons, ends at the year 1914. In it Bax attempted to create several myths about himself, but many of his own statements are contradicted by things he wrote elsewhere. Lewis Foreman's 1992 edition of Bax's autobiography is the most recent currently available. Entitled Farewell My Youth, and Other Writings by Arnold Bax, it also includes photographs and some letters. Another compendium of primary source material is Cuchullan Among the Guns (1998), a selection of letters from Bax's correspondence with the British conductor Christopher Whelen, edited by Dennis Andrews.

A significant event in Bax musicology was the publication of Graham Parlett's exhaustive list of Bax's works entitled A Catalogue of the Works of Sir Arnold Bax (1999). Recognising Parlett's achievement and contribution, Bax musicologists have now started to use his chronological numbering system as a universal system of reference (e.g. Bax's celebrated Third Symphony would be "Parlett #297" or simply P. 297). The doctoral dissertation of Dr. Paul R. Ludden and the M. Litt. dissertation of Thomas Elnaes (University of Dublin, Trinity College, 2006) use the succinct Parlett Numbers exclusively. As a composer Graham Parlett has also edited and orchestrated several Bax scores, including the Russian Suite and the film music to Oliver Twist.

Reception and recordings[link]

After his death, Bax's music fell into neglect. He had always sustained a Romantic outlook, distancing himself from musical modernism and especially Arnold Schoenberg's serialism, which was now being embraced by institutions worldwide. He was increasingly pigeon-holed as a 'musical pastoralist' together with Vaughan Williams and others.^{[citation needed]} Consequently, Bax's works tended to fall out of the repertoire of orchestras which had once given them frequent performances.^{[citation needed]}

Because of this decline, Bax's music was slow to reach recording. As late as the mid-sixties, there were only two recordings of his symphonies, one long deleted and the other on an obscure label. But from 1966 onwards, a revival of his music began with a series of recordings on Richard Itter's Lyrita label. By the centenary of his birth in 1983 much of his music was available in modern recordings. The Lyrita recordings of the First and Seventh Symphonies were reissued in 2006; that of the Sixth Symphony, only previously available on LP, in June 2007; and those of the Second and Fifth Symphonies, also only on LP, in February 2008.

Naxos Records have released a complete cycle of Bax’s symphonies and tone poems, recorded by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra under the baton of David Lloyd-Jones, along with much of his chamber music. Chandos Records have also championed Bax's orchestral music on CD with recordings of the tone poems often conducted either by Bryden Thomson or Vernon Handley, as well as two complete symphony cycles. The first cycle (released through the 1980s and 1990s) saw Bryden Thomson at the helm of the London Philharmonic Orchestra for all except the Fourth Symphony, which was played by the Ulster Orchestra. The second (released in 2003) was played by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra under Vernon Handley, a lifelong champion and connoisseur of Bax's music.^[4] This box set, which also contains recordings of Tintagel and the Rogue's Comedy Overture and includes thoughtful interviews in response to questions from Andrew McGregor and Lewis Foreman,^[5] garnered glowing reviews^[6] and won a Gramophone Award. It was followed (in 2008) by a further widely acclaimed disc of three of the tone poems plus the posthumous Sinfonietta conducted by Handley in 2005, this time with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra.^[7] Chandos has also released a recording of the complete scores to Oliver Twist and Malta G.C.^[8] (with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra under Rumon Gamba). Despite such successful championship on record, Bax’s orchestral music remains rarely performed in concert.

Although he was an able pianist, Bax's appearances as a performer were few and far between. There are recordings of him partnering with May Harrison and Lionel Tertis in sonatas by Frederick Delius and himself. He made a rare concert appearance at the memorial concert for Peter Warlock in 1930. His piano music has been recorded by several artists, including Iris Loveridge, John McCabe, Eric Parkin, Ashley Wass and Michael Endres. However, no complete survey has yet been recorded.

List of works[link]

This section requires expansion.

Ballets[link]

• Tamara (1911, orch. 2000)
• From Dusk till Dawn (1917)
• The Truth about the Russian Dancers (1920)

Orchestral[link]

Symphonies[link]

• Symphony No. 1 (1922)
• Symphony No. 2 (1926)
• Symphony No. 3 (1929)
• Symphony No. 4 (1931)
• Symphony No. 5 (1932)
• Symphony No. 6 (1935)
• Symphony No. 7 (1939)

Tone poems[link]

• Cathaleen-ni-Hoolihan (1905)
• Into The Twilight (1908)
• In The Faery Hills (1909)
• Rosc-catha (1910)
• Christmas Eve (1912, revised c.1921)
• Nympholept (1912, orch. 1915, revised 1935)
• The Garden of Fand (1913, orch. 1916)
• Spring Fire (1913)
• In Memoriam (1916)
• November Woods (1917)
• Tintagel (1917, orch. 1919)
• Summer Music (1917, orch. 1921, revised 1932)
• The Happy Forest (1922)
• The Tale the Pine Trees Knew (1931)
• Northern Ballad No. 1 (1927)
• Northern Ballad No. 2 (1934)
• Prelude for a Solemn Occasion (Northern Ballad No. 3) (1927, orch. 1933)
• A Legend (1944)

Other orchestral works[link]

• Variations for Orchestra (Improvisations) (1904)
• A Song of War and Victory (1905)
• On the Sea Shore (1908, orch. 1984)
• Festival Overture (1911, revised 1918)
• Dance of Wild Irravel (1912)
• Four Orchestral Pieces (1912–13)
• Three Pieces for Small Orchestra (1913, revised 1928)
• Symphonic Scherzo (1917, revised 1933)
• Russian Suite (1919)
• Mediterranean (1922)
• Cortège (1925)
• Romantic Overture (1926)
• Overture, Elegy and Rondo (1927)
• Three Pieces (1928)
• Overture to a Picaresque Comedy (1930)
• Sinfonietta (1932)
• Saga Fragment (1932)
• Rogue's Comedy Overture (1936)
• Overture to Adventure (1936)
• London Pageant (1937)
• Paean (1938)
• Salute to Sydney (Fanfare) (1943)
• Work in Progress (Overture) (1943)
• Victory March (1945)
• The Golden Eagle (Incidental Music) (1945)
• Two Royal Wedding Fanfares (1947)
• Coronation March (1952)

Concertante[link]

• Symphonic Variations, for piano and orchestra (1918)
• Phantasy for Viola and Orchestra (1920)
• Winter Legends, for piano and orchestra (1930)
• Cello Concerto (1932)
• Saga Fragment, for piano and orchestra (1932)
• Violin Concerto (1938)
• Piano Concertino (1939)
• Morning Song, for piano and orchestra (1946)
• Concertante for Three Solo Wind Instruments and Orchestra (1948/1949)
• Concertante for Orchestra with Piano (Left Hand) (1949)
• Variations on the name Gabriel Fauré for Harp & String Orchestra (1949)

Chamber[link]

One player[link]

• Valse, for harp (1931)
• Rhapsodic Ballad, for cello (1939)

Two players[link]

• Harp
  • Fantasy Sonata for Harp and Viola (1927)
  • Sonata for Flute and Harp (1928)

• Violin
  • Violin Sonata No. 1 (1910)
  • Legend, for violin and piano, in one movement (1915)
  • Violin Sonata No. 2 (1915, revised 1922)
  • Ballad, for violin and piano (1916)
  • Violin Sonata No. 3 (1927)
  • Ballad, for violin and piano (1929)
  • Violin Sonata in F (1928)

• Viola
  • Concert Piece for Viola and Piano (1904)
  • Viola Sonata (1922)
  • Fantasy Sonata for Harp and Viola (1927)
  • Legend, for viola and piano (1929)

• Cello
  • Folk-Tale, for cello & piano (1918)
  • Cello Sonata (1923)
  • Cello Sonatina (1933)
  • Legend-Sonata, for cello & piano (1943)

• Flute
  • Four Pieces for Flute and Piano (1912, revised 1915 & 1945)
  • Sonata for Flute and Harp (1928)

• Clarinet Sonata (1934)

Three players[link]

• Trio in One Movement for Piano, Violin, and Viola (1906)
• Elegiac Trio, for flute, viola, and harp (1916)
• Piano Trio in B flat (1946)

Four players[link]

• String Quartet No. 1 in G major (1918)
• Piano Quartet, in one movement (1922)
• String Quartet No. 2 (1925)
• String Quartet No. 3 in F (1936)

Five players[link]

• Quintet in G (1908)
• Piano Quintet in G minor (1915)
• Quintet for Harp and Strings, in one movement (1919)
• Oboe Quintet (1922)
• String Quintet, in one movement (1933)

Six or more players[link]

• In Memoriam, sextet for cor anglais, harp & string quartet (1916)
• Nonet (1930)
• Octet (1934)
• Threnody and Scherzo, octet in two movements (1936)
• Concerto for Flute, Oboe, Harp and String Quartet (1936)

Piano[link]

One piano[link]

• Clavierstücke (Juvenilia) (1897-8)
• Piano Sonata, Op. 1 (1898)
• Piano Sonata in D minor (1900)
• Marcia Trionfale (1900)
• White Peace (arranged by Ronald Stevenson 1907)
• Concert Valse in E flat (1910)
• Piano Sonata No. 1 (1910, revised 1917-20)
• Piano Sonata in F# minor (1910, revised, 1911, 1919 & 1921)
• Two Russian Tone-Pictures (1912)
• Nympholept (1912)
• Scherzo for Piano (1913)
• Toccata for Piano (1913)
• From the Mountains of Home (arranged by Peter Warlock) (1913)
• The Happy Forest (1914)
• In the Night (1914)
• Apple-Blossom-Time (1915)
• In a Vodka Shop (1915)
• The Maiden with the Daffodil (1915) )
• A Mountain Mood (1915)
• The Princess’s Rose Garden (1915)
• Sleepy-Head (1915)
• Winter Waters (1915)
• Dream in Exile (1916)
• Nereid (1916)
• On a May Evening (1918)
• A Romance (1918)
• The Slave Girl (1919)
• What the Minstrel Told Us (1919)
• Whirligig (1919)
• Piano Sonata No. 2 (1919, revised 1920)
• Burlesque (1920)
• Ceremonial Dance (1920)
• A Country-Tune (1920)
• A Hill Tune (1920)
• Lullaby (1920)
• Mediterranean (1920)
• Serpent Dance (1920)
• Water Music (1920)
• Piano Sonata in E-flat (1921)
• Piano Sonata No. 3 (1926)
• Pæan (c.1928)
• Piano Sonata No. 4 (1932)
• A Legend (1935)
• Piano Sonata in B flat Salzburg (1937)
• O Dame get up and bake your pies (1945)
• Suite on the Name Gabriel Fauré (1945)
• Four Pieces for Piano (1947)
• Two Lyrical Pieces for Piano (1948)

Two pianos[link]

• Fantasia for Two Pianos (1900)
• Festival Overture (arrangement of orchestral work 1911)
• Moy Mell (1916)
• Mediterranean (arranged for three hands by H. Rich 1920)
• Hardanger (1927)
• The Poisoned Fountain (1928)
• The Devil that tempted St Anthony (1928)
• Sonata for Two Pianos (1929)
• Red Autumn (1931)

Film music[link]

• Malta, G. C. (1942)
• Oliver Twist (1948)

Vocal[link]

Choral[link]

• Fatherland (Runeberg, tr. C. Bax) [tenor solo] (1907, revised 1934)
• A Christmas Carol (Anon.) [arranged for SATB by Hubert Dawkes] (1909)
• Enchanted Summer (Shelley) [two soprano solos] (1910)
• Variations sur ‘Cadet Rousselle’ (French trad.) [arranged by Max Saunders] (1918)
• Of a rose I sing a song (Anon.) [SATB, harp, cello, double bass] (1920)
• Now is the Time of Christymas (Anon.) [TB, flute, piano] (1921)
• Mater, ora Filium (Anon.) [SSAATTBB] (1921)
• This Worldes Joie (Anon.) [SATB with SATB divisions] (1922)
• The Boar’s Head (Anon.) [TTBB] (1923)
• I sing of a maiden that is makeless (Anon.) [SAATB] (1923)
• To the Name above every Name (Crashaw) [soprano solo] (1924)
• St Patrick’s Breastplate (Anon.) [SATB] (1924)
• Walsinghame (Raleigh) (tenor, obbligato soparano) (1926)
• Lord, Thou hast told us (Washbourne) [hymn for SATB] (1930)
• The Morning Watch (Vaughan) [SATB] (1935)
• 5 Fantasies on Polish Christmas Carols (trans. Śliwiński) [unison trebles] (1942)
• 5 Greek Folksongs (trans. Michel-Dmitri Calvocoressi) [SATB] (1942)
• To Russia (Masefield) [baritone solo] (1944)
• Gloria [SATB] (1945)
• Nunc Dimittis [SATB] (1945)
• Te Deum [SATB] (1945)
• Epithalamium (Spenser) [SATB in unison] (1947)
• Magnificat [SATB] (1948)
• Happy Birthday to you (Hill) [arr. SATB] (1951)
• What is it like to be young and fair? (C. Bax) [SSAAT] (1953)

Songs with orchestra[link]

• 2 Nocturnes [soprano] (1911)
• 3 Songs [high voice] (1914)
• Song of the Dagger (Strettell and Sylva) [bass] (1914)
• The Bard of the Dimbovitza (Strettel and Sylva) [mezzo-soprano] (1914, revised 1946)
• Glamour (O’Byrne) [high voice] (1921, orchestrated by Rodney Newton 1987)
• A Lyke-Wake (Anon.) [high voice] (1908, orchestrated 1934)
• Wild Almond (Trench) [high voice] (1924, orchestrated 1934)
• Eternity (Herrick) [high voice] (1934)
• O Dear! What can the matter be? (trad. arr. Bax)

Songs with chamber ensemble[link]

• Aspiration (Dehmel) [arranged for high voice w/violin, cello, & piano] (1909)
• My eyes for beauty pine (Bridges) [high voice with string quartet] (c.1921)
• O Mistress mine (Shakespeare) [high voice with string quartet] (c.1921)

Songs with piano[link]

• The Grand Match (O'Neill) (1903)
• To My Homeland (Gwynn) (1904)
• A Celtic Song Cycle (Macleod) (1904)
  • Eilidh my Fawn
  • Closing Doors
  • The Dark Eyes to Mine
  • A Celtic Lullaby
  • At the Last
• When We Are Lost (Arnold Bax) (1905)
• From the Uplands to the Sea (Morris) (1905)
• Leaves, Shadows and Dreams (Macleod) (1905)
• In the Silence of the Woods (Macleod) (1905)
• Green Branches (Macleod) (1905)
• The Fairies (Allingham) (1905)
• Golden Guendolen (Morris) (1905)
• The Song in the Twilight (Freda Bax) (1905)
• Mircath: Viking-Battle-Song (Macleod) (1905)
• A Hushing Song (Macleod) (1906)
• I Fear Thy Kisses Gentle Maiden (Shelley) (1906)
• Ballad: The Twa Corbies [recitation with piano] ('Border Minstrelsy') (1906)
• Magnificat (St. Luke 1.46-55) (1906)
• The Blessed Damozel (Rossetti) (1906)
• 5 Traditional Songs of France (1920)
• I Heard a Piper Piping (Seosamh MacCathmhaoil, Joseph Campbell) (1922)

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Corder, Frederick. A History of The Royal Academy of Music from 1822 to 1922 (London: Fredrick Corder, 1922).

• O’Byrne, Dermot. Poems by Arnold Bax, collected, selected and edited by Lewis Foreman, together with two previously unpublished songs by Bax to his own words, Lewis Foreman (ed.), (London: Thames Publishing, 1979).

• De Barra, Séamas. "Arnold Bax, The Fleischmanns and Cork", The Journal of Music in Ireland 5/1 (January–February 2005): 24–30.

• De Barra, Séamas. "Into the Twilight: Arnold Bax and Ireland", The Journal of Music in Ireland 4/3 (March–April 2004): 25–29.

• Elnaes, Thomas. "An Anglo-Irish Composer: New Perspectives on the Creative Achievements of Sir Arnold Bax", Master's Dissertation, University of Dublin, Trinity College, 2006.

• Fleischmann, Tilly. "Some reminiscences of Arnold Bax", 12 May 2005.

• Fry, Helen. "Music and Men, the Life and Loves of Harriet Cohen", The History Press, September 2008.

• Foreman, Lewis, Bax. A composer and his times (1st edn, Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1983; 2nd edn, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 1987; 3rd edn, Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2007).

• Foreman, Lewis (ed.). Farewell, My Youth and other writings by Arnold Bax (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1992; now Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Ltd.).

• Foreman, Lewis and Susan Foreman. London–A Musical Gazetteer (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2005).

• Parlett, Graham. A Catalogue Of The Works Of Sir Arnold Bax (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999).

• Scott-Sutherland, Colin. Arnold Bax (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1973).

• Scott-Sutherland, Colin (ed.). Ideala – Love Letters and Poems of Arnold Bax (Petersfield, Hampshire: Fand Music Press, 2001).

• White, Harry. The Keeper’s Recital: Music and Cultural History in Ireland, 1770–1970 (Cork: Cork University Press, 1998).

• British Broadcasting Radio 3. "Arnold Bax", Composer of the Week, 29 July 2003.

External links[link]

Biographical links[link]

• Sir Arnold Bax, an extensive archive of reviews and essays on Arnold Bax
• Music & Men, a biographical website dedicated to Bax's lover, the pianist Harriet Cohen

Other links[link]

• Bax Piano Sonata no. 1 played by Jonathan Powell (YouTube)
• The Lied and Art Song Texts Page created and maintained from Emily Ezust Texts of the songs of Bax.
• Quintet for harp and strings from the Sibley Music Library Digital Score Collection
• Free scores by Arnold Bax at the International Music Score Library Project
• National Portrait Gallery (18 portraits, 8 on display)
• Reviews of IDEALA: Collected Poems of Dermot O'Byrne, available from Fand Music Press
• List of Bax first editions available from Fand Music Press, including piano music and the IDEALA book
• List of Sir Arnold Bax's Works David Parlett's site, based on Graham Parlett's Catalog
• Free scores by Arnold Bax in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Works by Bax available at the Internet Archive
• Archival material relating to Arnold Bax listed at the UK National Register of Archives

Roger Cole is the founder and chairman of the Peace and Neutrality Alliance (PANA). He is an active member of the Irish Labour Party which he joined in 1967 and was on the national executive of the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. ^[1]

He has stood for election for the Labour Party in Dún Laoghaire in the local elections, unsuccessfully.^[2]

He has campaigned against the Iraq War and the use by the US military of Shannon Airport. He has spoken on behalf of the PANA at Oireachtas committees, the National Forum on Europe^[3][4] and in the media.

He has campaigned against European Union (EU) militarisation and EU treaties such as the Treaty of Nice, which extend the EU powers into security and military matters.^[5]

He recently represented PANA at the hearings of the sub-committee on Ireland's Future in the European Union set up in the aftermath of the 'no' vote in the first referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon.^[6]

References[link]

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