Shamus O’Brien is set against the Irish rebellion of 1798, and tells the story of the charismatic Shamus O’Brien, hunted by the English so he can be brought to justice – but will he manage to escape? The opera was so successful that Stanford feared it would incite anti-English sentiment and he withdrew it, but, revived after his death, its mix of pathos, drama, and melodies proved irresistible.

Sir Charles Villiers Stanford was a prolific composer, and his church music, in particular, is regularly played and sung. He was also widely recognised as a highly influential composition teacher at the Royal College of Music, London, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, where his students included Vaughan Williams, Holst, Frank Bridge and Muriel Herbert. Shamus O’Brien, based on Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s poem and with a libretto by the Irish writer George H. Jessop, had everything – a strong story, comedy, pathos, a historical basis, plus memorable tunes (two were very familiar folk tunes). It was what the Dublin-born Stanford wanted – a work that would be popular, with firmly Irish roots, that would show that he was much more than a very fine symphonist and choral composer. First performed at the Opera Comique in London in 1896, it was subsequently performed around the world, with much made of the inclusion of a part for a player of Irish, or Uilleann pipes.

Founded in 2014, Retrospect Opera, an energetic independent recording company and charity devoted to reviving significant operas and related works of the British Isles prior to 1945, recorded this romantic comic opera in 2023.