In the footsteps of Frank Patterson

When we started filming in Clonmel for a documentary about Frank Patterson, we set up our camera in the open, under the life-size statue of this internationally renowned tenor. It stands on a plinth in the heart of the town’s civic centre in the Mick Delahunty Square. As cast in bronze by sculptor Jerry McKenna, the great tenor is dressed in a morning suit, his hands outstretched and his body poised as if mid-breath in the act of singing an aria. All that day while we were filming in and around his home town, we felt him keeping watch over us.

It wasn’t too far a walk to the boys’ national school, Ss Peter and Paul’s CBS on Kickham Street where Frank went to school. On his first day in the early 1940s, he stood up and introduced himself confidently to the teacher: “Is mise Proinsias Mac Pháidín,” he said. Later he explained with great conviction that he was going to be a singer when he grew up and he sang a song for the class. His name is still there in the school’s roll book, along with his scholastic and attendance records. It’s clear he was an excellent student, who achieved high marks in most subjects, particularly in Irish and music.

His sister, Imelda Malone, remembers he was always interested in music. He used to sing duets with his father, she says. “He did the Pearl Fishers’ duet with my Dad, it was just beautiful. Daddy was a lyrical tenor and they would harmonise. Mammy played the piano. In the house you’d heard Daddy and Frank singing, competing with one another trying to get the high notes.” As a teenager, she says, Frank used to spend all his money on LPs at Belinda Cashin’s little music shop on Abbey Street.

All through primary school, Frank took part in many of the musical productions that were put on by St Mary's Choral Society at the Regal Theatre on Clonmel's Waterford Road. Apart from its stylish art deco frontage, the Regal is no more but the White Memorial Theatre, which is an old Wesleyan chapel designed by William Tinsley, dating back to 1843, was full of atmosphere the day we brought our TG4 cameras there to record this aspect of Frank Patterson's life. His parents, Séamus and May, were founding members of the society and any time the part of a pageboy or a child had to filled, Frank was brought along. Today a photograph of a 1949 production of The Pirates of Penzance hangs in the foyer of this lovely old building on Wolfe Tone Street and you can pick Frank out in the cast at the age of 10 or 11.

As we filmed in the auditorium, the 220-seat venue was also redolent with memories of the night Frank Patterson returned to his home town in the mid-1980s to help raise funds for the musical society. George Barry, former chair of the choral society, says the old chapel, which opened as a theatre in 1975, “was packed to the rafters that night”. With more than 40 albums in six different languages under his belt, the success of a night in the company of Frank Patterson was never in doubt.

Years later, not only his voice but his ability to act was utilised by director John Huston in his last film in 1987, The Dead, when he asked the singer to play the tenor Bartell D'Arcy, the character in the story who sings The Lass of Aughrim. "He was a natural," recalls actor Ingrid Craigie who worked beside him on the shoot. "He knew his lines, his timing was brilliant, he was very funny," she remembers. More work in films followed. His voice is a central element in the Coen brothers' 1990 Miller's Crossing. Again he sings and appears as a character in Neil Jordan's 1996 film Michael Collins. Even two years after his untimely death in 2000 at the age of 61, Frank Patterson's voice featured in Martin Scorsese's film, Gangs of New York.

But the most evocative of all locations in Clonmel perhaps is the site of Frank Patterson's grave in the town's cemetery which lies in the lee of Sliabh na mBan. This was the last place we set up our camera, here beside the graveyard's little oratory, where the man who was born on October 5th, 1938, just 75 years ago, lies in peace.

Frank Patterson: Guth Órga na hÉireann, on TG4, presented by Catherine Foley and directed by RoseAnn Foley was screened yesterday and is repeated tonight at 7.30pm.