Music man

For some reason - maybe because of the forthcoming centenary of the outbreak of the Great War - the song "It's a long way to Tipperary" is in the news.  Why is this worthy of comment?  Because there are two distinct stories of how the song was written, and by whom.  The sheet music credits Jack Judge and Harry Williams as joint composers, but both (or their descendants) have claimed it as their own work. They had certainly known one another for years, and Judge, who played the music halls, claims that he was playing in Stalybridge (Manchester) one night when he was bet five shillings that he couldn't come up with a new song for the next night and won the bet by coming up with Tipperary.  Williams - or rather his family - maintain that he wrote the song (originally called "It's a long way to Connemara") some years earlier, and that Judge pinched it and changed the name to Tipperary to win his bet. Well, whoever and wherever, it caught the imagination and became perhaps the best known song of WW I.