Leaders of the pack

Famous Irish bandsmen

Patrick Sarsfield Gilmorewas born in Ballygar, Co Galway in 1829, and spent his working life in the US. His bands played at the inaugural parade for president James Buchanan in 1857, and at both Democratic and Republican party conventions. He organised festivals with up to 20,000 performers, brought Johann Strauss's orchestra to the US, and once hired PT Barnum's Hippodrome, turning it into an indoor park for concerts. He is perhaps most famous for the 1863 song When Johnny Comes Marching Home.

John William Fentonwas born in Kinsale, Co Cork, in 1828. He became a bandmaster with the British Army, and subsequently gave Japan its first brass band in 1869. He also wrote the original melody for Kimigayo, which became Japan's national anthem.

He left Japan in 1877, and moved to Scotland. It is not known when he died, and the last recorded mention of this founding father of band music in Japan has been traced to 1883.