Danny Boy the story behind the song. Who is the real author of Danny Boy? An upper class English barrister ravaged by the loss of his estranged son or a tragic Irish-American woman who died alone with bitter memories?
2013 was the centenary year of the publication of Danny Boy, which has become one of the best known and loved songs of the twentieth century. Fred Weatherly (1848-1929), barrister and prolific songwriter wrote the words. In1910, a year of tragedy for him with the deaths of his father and only son within 3 months of each other. He had penned some verses that year but was unable to find suitable music for them. But in 1912, he states in his memoirs, a sister-in-law in America sent him the music of the Londonderry air with a suggestion he might put words to that melody. Fred claimed not have heard this traditional Irish air before but said it was one the most beautiful melodies he had ever come across. With modifications, his 1910 words could be fitted to it and Danny Boy was published by Boosey and Hawkes, in 1913.
Its popularity was almost instantaneous, aided by the first recording in 1918. This is the currently accepted story of the birth of the song.
I am Fred Weatherly’s great-grandson, inheriting the copyright of his works in 1989 from my mother. I then became the person approached for information about him and his songs, but I soon realised, when asked about Danny Boy, that I couldn’t add to the accepted story.
I knew little of Fred’s private life, nothing about his son (my grandfather) and nothing about the sister-in-law in America. Fifteen years ago, I embarked on family research to find out more, fitting this around a busy professional life as a psychiatrist. It turned out to have been quite a journey, greatly informed by the discovery of boxes of papers and letters archived at the University of Colorado at Boulder since 1936, after the death of Fred’s brother Eddie. In the boxes, I uncovered contemporaneous information about Fred, his family and about the struggles in the Depression of those in the family who had emigrated to the USA. Fred’s brother Eddie had tried and failed at silver mining in the San Juan Mountains.
His wife, Margaret – a devoted and passionate Irish American, proud of her heritage – wrote copiously about the travails of their lives. Among her output, I found her account of how the melody, the Londonderry air, was conveyed to Fred – an account considerably different to the accepted one above based on Fred’s memoirs. I have no reason to disbelieve Margaret; details check out. Having seen this, it seems to me that Fred should have acknowledged her contribution. He didn’t. Eddie and Margaret go on to die in poverty. it is time for Margaret’s voice should be heard.
Her contribution does I think, explain one mystery about Danny boy – how did an upper-class Englishman who had never set foot in Ireland come to write a song that immediately resonated with and became adopted by Irish people? My discovery of Jess and her contribution to Danny Boy returns its genesis at least in part to the Irish. (pictured right, Fred Weatherly)
The Danny Boy story is the central theme of the book, which covers the lives of three generations of the Weatherly family. Some members were successful, others died in poverty. Their lives were full of interest and have required me to read up on many and varied topics – including the letters of William Gladstone, Walter Pater and the aesthetic movement at Oxford, musical life in London in the 1890’s, Henry Irving and Ellen Terry on stage, the US dollar and the silver standard, the silver miner’s life in Colorado, silver fox farming in New York state, psychiatric hospitals and the treatment of mental illness in the early part of the last century.
A second and darker theme emerged as I researched – that of mental illness which affected many members of the family. Sometime there were sufficient details for me to hazard a diagnosis. Such illness in his wife caused Fred to separate from her, though he immediately set up home with a mistress. Mental illness came close to my home when I discovered that my mother had a sister who spent the last years of her life in a mental hospital. Her existence was unknown to my father and me. My mother had jealously guarded this family secret, explaining her reluctance to talk about her family and thus my ignorance of them. Finding out her secret however, has helped explain a painful episode in my childhood and gain resolution
I have decided to publish this story primarily to set the record straight about Danny Boy but also, hopefully, to interest others in my journey. I have gained great pleasure from this family research and hope others might do the same. It has involved meeting cousins, unknown to me, from around the world. As a psychiatrist, I was astonished to discover that among the numerous doctors that this family has spawned, there were three more psychiatrists, again completely unknown to me.
No research of this type is ever completed. Since the book’s publication in 2013, I have come across and been sent by kind people much new information. The book needed correcting, editing and rewriting. So a new edition (2021) will now replace the original on Amazon.
A BBC4/RTE sponsored programme on Danny Boy was broadcast in 2013, using some of the new material in the book to bring Margaret Weatherly at last into the story.
See all clips from Danny Boy – The Ballad That Bewitched the World (5)
That the song still retains national affection is demonstrated by its inclusion now as a regular feature of the last night of the Proms. The relevant section of programme notes for the 2024 season is –
‘Three national songs are inserted at this point in the proceedings to reflect the truly British nature of the Last Night. First, to Ireland, and Bob Chilcott’s arrangement of a song whose origins lie in the mists of time. The first recorded mention of what would become known as the ‘Londonderry Air’ was from the pen of Miss Jane Ross of Limervady in 1855, and it was subsequently immortalised by F. E. Weatherly’s lyrics as ‘Danny Boy’. Across the water to Scotland, and the Jacobite lament ‘The Skye Boat Song’ traces a fleeing Bonnie Prince Charlie on his way to the Isle of Skye, following his defeat at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. Like ‘Danny Boy’, this Gaelic rowing song was also in fact written to words by an Englishman, Sir Harold Boulton, in the 1880s; his collaborator Annie MacLeod adapted the tune long known as ‘The Cuckoo in the Grove’. This lilting arrangement, together with the pipe-infused ‘Londonderry Air’, was specially arranged by Chilcott for the Last Night in 2005 and dedicated to the BBC Singers. This year the trio is completed by Gareth Glyn’s tender take on the traditional Welsh love song ‘Ar lan y môr’ (Beside the sea).’
Londonderry Air (Danny Boy)
Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling,
From glen to glen, and down the mountain side.
The summer’s gone, and all the roses falling,
’Tis you, ’tis you must go, and I must bide.
But come ye back when summer’s in the meadow,
Or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow.
’Tis I’ll be here in sunshine or in shadow,
Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so.
But when ye come and all the flowers are dying,
If I am dead, and dead I well may be,
You’ll come and find the place where I am lying
And kneel and say an ‘Ave’ there for me.
And I shall hear, tho’ soft you tread above me,
And all my grave will warmer, sweeter be.
For you will bend and tell me that you love me,
And I shall sleep in peace until you come to me.
Frederic Edward Weatherly (1848–1929)
Background materials for the book are now held in the Bath Record Office
In Sunshine And In Shadow:
The family story of Danny Boy
By Anthony Mann