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In mid-1921 Fr Breathnach, writing as the Rev. P.A. Walsh, published a ‘pamphlet’ on the century-old question of the song ‘The Exile of Erin’. This once-acclaimed piece had been published as his own composition by the famous Scottish poet Thomas Campbell in 1803 but his authorship had been convincingly challenged by the family and friends of the Leitrim songwriter George Nugent Reynolds who had died in 1802. Having taken part in an exchange of letters on the subject with the music historian W.H. Grattan Flood (a supporter of Campbell’s) in October 1920 in the Irish Independent newspaper, Breathnach laid out the evidence in support of Reynolds in the 1921 pamphlet. The controversy continued between the two in the Irish Monthly magazine of the same year.
