WHO WROTE “TIPPERARY?”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23205, 1 June 1937, Page 18

WHO WROTE “TIPPERARY?”

“ Tipperary,” that best-known British song of the World War, was written in the Lancashire town of Staiybridge 25 years ago—and it was written in a few hours. An old inn at Mere End, Baisall Common, Warwickshire, bears a tablet which purports to commemorate the " fact ” that “ Tipperary ” was I written there in 1912. Mr Jack Judge, i the composer, however, who now lives j at Oldbury, Worcestershire, has settled a long-standing controversy by revealI ing that he wrote “Tipperary” at i Staiybridge. In 1912, Mr Judge was appearing at the Grand Theatre at Staiybridge when a fellow artist chal- ' lenged him to write a song and produce it in a day. On the same day Mr Judge wrote the words and music of “Tipperary” and sang it before a large audience assembled in the Grand Theatre. “The song caused such a furore,” he informed a representative of the Christian Science Monitor, " that we had to sing it again and again, and had some difficulty in clearing the theatre for the ‘second house.’-’