Sir, - I wonder if your readers are aware that Percy French, who died in 1920 while visiting his sister, lies buried in the Anglican churchyard of St Luke in Formby, Lancashire. I am surprised that there is not a movement for the repatriation of his remains. There are notable precedents.
While I yield to none in my admiration for Sir Roger Casement and W. B. Yeats, did French do less for Ireland? Perhaps his work is slightly out of synch with the present mood of the country, but it still commands affection among an older audience, and evokes a time when Ireland took herself less seriously.
Do we not see his influence on a whole generation of writers and filmmakers, and on the way Ireland has been perceived for the greater part of this century? His songs may not be politically correct, but they are funny, often sad, and above all, humane.
Is there not a country churchyard somewhere, or a corner of one of Dublin's great cathedrals, which has room for the remains of this Trinity man after so long an exile? - Yours, etc.,
Dentons Green,
St. Helens,
Merseyside.