Herbert Hughes

Who was Herbert Hughes?

Herbert Hughes was an Irish composer, music critic and collector of folk songs.

He was born and brought up in Belfast, Ireland, but completed his formal music education at the Royal College of Music, London, graduating in 1901. Subsequently he worked as a music critic, notably for The Daily Telegraph from 1911 to 1932.

Described as having an “ardent and self-confident manner”, Hughes is first heard of in an Irish musical capacity collecting traditional airs and transcribing folk songs in North Donegal in August 1903 with his brother Fred, F.J. Bigger, and John Campbell. Dedicated to seeking out and recording such ancient melodies as were yet to be found in the more remote glens and valleys of Ulster, he produced in 1904 Songs of Uladh with Joseph Campbell, illustrated by his brother John and paid for by Bigger.

Continually encouraged by Bigger, and in collaborations with the poets Joseph Campbell and Padraic Colum, and Yeats himself, Hughes arranged and produced three celebrated Irish songs that have and will long outlast his memory, My Lagan Love, She Moved Through the Fair and Down By The Salley Gardens.