{"id":21784,"date":"2023-07-03T09:56:15","date_gmt":"2023-07-03T09:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/?page_id=21784"},"modified":"2024-09-20T06:48:56","modified_gmt":"2024-09-20T06:48:56","slug":"rafferty-pat","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/index.php\/rafferty-pat\/","title":{"rendered":"Rafferty, Pat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Pat Rafferty<\/strong> (1861-1952) was the stage name of Henry Brown, a popular Music Hall comic for over 40 years. He was born in Birmingham of Irish parents, and started singing career at the age of 12 by entering a series of pub singing competitions. He was fond of saying that he had sung in every music hall in the British Empire and whilst he was known for his Irish songs his repertoire varied from broadly comic and nonsense songs to high-flown ballads. According to Macqueen Pope, when Irish regiments were fighting in the Boer War:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Rafferty became extremely patriotic on behalf of of the Emerald Isle, asking the British public [in song]<\/em>: \u201cWhat you think of the Irish now?\u201d And informing them that if they had been in the habit of calling them traitors because agitators made troubles, \u201cYou can\u2019t call them traitors now!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MacQueen Pope, p376<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

He loved playing to Irish audiences and would tell the story of the time in a Dublin music hall when the audience refused to let him leave the stage and the police were called to clear the theatre \u2013 prompting a riot which continued on the street outside. He retired from the stage to set himself up in business first as a builder and later as an antique dealer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Songs credited to Rafferty collected from traditional singers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n