Joe

There's a short biography of French HERE where, BTW, it says he wrote Abdul under a pseudonym, when a student.

Far be it from me to be sceptical of scepticism - but I have never heard his authorship of the song questioned in Ireland. Healy can be tolerably vague and unreliable about some things, but his biography is very thorough. For that matter, the alternative would be that French was obsessively claiming it for base or other motives. That seems totally at variance with his known character.

Wonder if Collinson, who composed some of his tunes and arranged others, says anything about it? He wrote a book describing a "concert tour" of ireland at the beginning of the 20th c. Don't think he mentions Abdul, of the top of my head.

Regards