Frank Patterson KCHS (5 October 1938 – 10 June 2000) was an internationally renowned Irish tenor following in the tradition of singers such as Count John McCormack and Josef Locke.

[2] Patterson moved to Dublin in 1961 to enrol at the National Academy of Theatre and Allied Arts where he studied acting while at the same time receiving vocal training from Hans Waldemar Rosen.

[4] He also toured with Janine Micheau in Pelléas et Mélisande[2] and won a reputation as a singer of Handel, Mozart, and Bach oratorios and German, Italian and French song.

[4] He recorded over thirty albums in six languages, won silver, gold and platinum discs and was the first Irish singer to host his own show in Radio City Music Hall in New York.

[3] Rising to greater prominence with the new popularity of "Celtic" music in the 1990s, Patterson saw many of his past recordings reissued for American audiences, and in 1998 he starred in the PBS special Ireland in Song.

[9] Patterson was a devout Catholic, and in 1979 sang at the Mass celebrated by Pope John Paul II in Dublin's Phoenix Park before a congregation of almost a million people.

While many of his Irish songs were quite sentimental, he did not indulge in strongly nationalistic themes and the first funds raised for the Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation in the early 1970s were takings from a concert he gave in the Rupert Guinness Hall.

[11] At his death accolades and tributes came from, among others, President of Ireland Mary McAleese, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Opposition leader John Bruton who said he had "the purest voice of his generation".

[3] He was survived by his wife, the concert pianist Eily O'Grady, their son Eanan, a violinist with whom he frequently performed, and by his sister Imelda Malone and brothers Noel and Maurice.

[12] In September 2008, Watts personally presented to the Irish consulate in New York City, a plaque that honoured Frank Patterson's contribution to Tribute in Song.

[citation needed] A bronze life-size piece by sculptor Jerry McKenna from Texas, titled "The Golden Tenor Statue", was unveiled to his memory in Mick Delahunty Square, Clonmel, in June 2002.