Sir, – Dr Dave Flynn (April 16th) queries the description of Charles Villiers Stanford’s music as “British” in relation to the funeral arrangements for Lady Thatcher (I respect titles).
In doing so, he conflates ethnicity with nationality and identity; Prof Stanford was undeniably, ethnically Irish but in all other respects British as those three attributes don’t always coincide.
As that great Irishman Lord Wellington put it – just because a man is born in a stable don’t mean he’s a horse! – Yours, etc,
Dr PATRICK O’BRIEN,
Blythesway, Alvechurch,
Birmingham, England.
Sir,– Dr Dave Flynn (April 16th), forgets several facts about CV Stanford.
This Dublin man founded the Royal College of Music, whose orchestra provided the music at his own funeral. This, along with the burial of his ashes in Westminster Abbey, shows us that Stanford had no difficulty with being a British man who happened to be Irish, a reasonably commonly held notion at the time.
Article 3 of the 1922 Free State constitution states that citizenship applied to those “domiciled” in the state, which Stanford wasn’t.
He was a proud Irishman but also a proud citizen of the United Kingdom, something to which the adjective “British” refers too, as it still does today. – Yours, etc,
PAUL McDONAGH-
FORDE,
Cairns Road,
Sligo.