What is John Ireland?
[[File:John Nicholson Ireland (circa 1920).jpg|thumb|John Ireland (around 1920)]] '''John Ireland''' (born near [[Manchester]], 13 August 1879; died Washington, [[Sussex]], 12 June 1962) was an English composer. He is particularly remembered for his ''Piano Concerto'' and for his [[church music]], especially the [[anthem]] ''Greater love hath no man'', the song ''The Holy Boy'' and the [[hymn]] tune to ''My song is love unknown''. He had an unhappy childhood, and he always felt unsure of himself and rather lonely. == Life == John Ireland was born in Bowdon, Greater [[Manchester]]. His father, who was 70 years old, was a [[publisher]] who owned a [[newspaper]]. He had married for a second time after his wife had died, and John was the youngest of five children from the second marriage. His mother was 30 years younger than her husband. When John was 14 his mother died, and his father died the next year. [[File:Rock Common Windmill, Washington - geograph.org.uk - 1198273.jpg|thumb|Rock Common Windmill, Washington, Sussex, England, where Ireland lived in the 1950s]] John Ireland studied [[piano]] and [[pipe organ|organ]] at the [[Royal College of Music]]. Later he also had [[Composition (music)|composition]] lessons from [[Charles Villiers Stanford]]. He later became a teacher at the College himself. His pupils included the composers [[Alan Bush]] and [[Geoffrey Bush]] (who were not related), [[Ernest Moeran]] and [[Benjamin Britten]]. Geoffrey Bush later helped to prepare a lot of Ireland’s works for publication. Ireland mostly made his living as an organist and choirmaster. Ireland enjoyed going to the [[Channel Islands]]. He liked the [[landscape]]s there. He was evacuated from them just before the German invasion during [[World War II]]. John Ireland married once, but his marriage only lasted a few months. On 10 September 1949, his 70th birthday was celebrated in a special [[BBC Proms|Prom]] concert. The soloist in the ''Piano Concerto'' was the pianist Eileen Joyce, who later made the first