New Blue Plaque to be unveiled for Derry composer

Dorothy Parke is now remembered as a composer of children’s songs, set to poems by Ulster poets. Her songs are popular competition choices at Feiseanna throughout Ireland: generations of children have enjoyed her simple tunes with strong rhythms. Over many years, the liveliness and immediacy of her compositions have made her songs firm favourites with children, audiences and adjudicators alike.

The 15 songs from her best known song cycle, By Winding Roads - set to verses by Ulster poet, John Irvine - have been popular choices at the two Derry Feiseanna over the past 40 years. Hence the choice of St Columb’s Hall for the Plaque. Over The Hills and Far Away, is still often used for the Children’s Solo Class at the Derry Feis.

Dorothy Parke was born in the Dunfield area of the city in 1904. There she grew up, studied piano, and then taught music until the later 1920s. After study at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where she won a prize for composition, she returned to Derry in 1930 to resume music teaching. By this time, she had already won the Knockan Cup for composition for four consecutive years at the Londonderry Music Festival, and a composition prize at the Dublin Feis Ceoil.

In the mid 1930s, she moved to Belfast where she subsequently spent most of her working life. Nevertheless, she never forgot her native city, and this was reflected in her composition, St Columba’s Poem on Derry.

Dorothy Parke wrote over 150 songs; only some of which are still performed today. She also wrote a significant amount of chamber music and piano compositions, which are largely unknown and neglected. But in her lifetime, Dorothy Parke’s music was performed on more than thirty occasions in BBC radio concerts and on RTE radio. The first BBC broadcast was in 1935; the last, as recently as December 1984, when her Fantasia on Christmas Carols was played by the Ulster Orchestra.

Dorothy Parke was also an outstanding musician and teacher. She performed at many concerts in Belfast in the post-war years, often with fellow musicians Havelock Nelson, Howard Ferguson - and frequently in a Piano Duo with husband Douglas Brown. He too was an accomplished musician. Dorothy Parke’s pupils included conductor Kenneth Montgomery, the world renowned sopranos Norma Burrowes and Marjorie Wright, and the late Derek Bell, the musical polymath of The Chieftains, All held her in high regard as a teacher.

After over fifty years composing and teaching in Belfast, Dorothy Parke retired to Portrush. By then, in the mid 1980s, she was widowed, but she chose to spend her final years in the North Coast, where she and Douglas had spent many happy summer holidays in the past.

Parke died in Portrush on 15 February 1990. Only a few years before her death, her song, O Men From the Fields had been sung at a BBC radio broadcast from St Patrick’s Church in Coleraine, by the combined school choirs of the area.

At a recent exhibition in Dublin, Parke was included as one of the Forgotten Gems and Hidden People in Ireland’s cultural history. But she has definitely not been forgotten in her native city, where the members of the Ulster History Circle, her former pupils and leading musicians throughout Northern Ireland will gather to remember this outstanding Derry-born composer and musician.

The Dorothy Parke Plaque is the third ‘musical’ Plaque in the city in this past year. An Ulster History Blue Plaque was unveiled to composer Redmond Friel in February past, and then to Feis musician James MacCafferty last April. A final musical Plaque will be unveiled to popular singer Josef Locke in 2024.

Chris Spurr, Chairman of the Ulster History Circle said: “Dorothy Parke is renowned for creating music for all to enjoy, especially around her native city. The Ulster History Circle is delighted to commemorate this distinguished musician and composer with a blue plaque, and the Circle is particularly grateful to Derry City and Strabane District Council for their financial support, and to St Columb’s Hall and the Tower Museum for their valued assistance.”

The Plaque will be unveiled by the Mayor of DCSDC, Cllr Sandra Duffy and Mrs Joan Smyth, a former piano pupil of Dorothy Parke and young Willow McIntyre from the McGinley School of Music in Derry, will be singing a solo of 'Over the Hills and Far Away', Dorothy Parke's most well-known song at the Plaque Unveiling.