This is an old style, sean-nós song composed by a man named Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh. It is a love song, celebrating the elegance of Eleanor Kavanagh, the daughter of a well respected lord. The song praises the beauty and elegance of Eleanor. It opens with the line, ‘Mo ghrá den chéad
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'The Wild Geese' is an air written in commemoration of the Jacobite army of Patrick Sarsfield, which fought for James II against William of Orange in the 'War of the Three Kings' (1689-1691). Finally defeated at Aughrim in July 1691, Sarsfield's soldiers were, in the subsequent T
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‘Farewell to Miltown’ was composed by Junior Crehan while waiting for a lift to a Céilí band rehearsal. He had been waiting outside his house for the lift to arrive but it never came. He went back into his house annoyed and disgusted and this tune came into his head. In the book
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The opening reel in this selection was learned from Kevin Crawford’s album, In Good Company. The New York fiddler Willie Kelly learned this tune from an unpublished manuscript of Fermanagh music that was sent to him which indicated that Fermanagh fiddler, Tommy Gunn composed the
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Set dances are solo dances, usually with a jig or hornpipe rhythm, and they differ from other dance forms in the Irish tradition in having one part, usually the second part, longer than the others. Each set dance has its own specific tune which bears the same title, and the tunes
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‘The Caves of Kiltannon’ was written by Paddy Canny (1919-2008), a fiddle player from East Clare. This jig featured on the album Paddy Canny: Traditional Music from the Legendary East Clare Fiddler. These caves are located about 2km north of Tulla in Co. Clare. In the last centur
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This four-part hornpipe is sometimes referred to as ‘Dermot Grogan’s as it was played and recorded by Dermot Grogan from Co. Mayo. It is, however, a composition of the three-time All-Ireland Champion banjo player, Owen Hackett from Tullamore, Co. Offaly. Hackett has a large colle
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‘The Frost is All Over’ is a popular session tune. It was recorded as No. 313 in O’Neill’s 1001: The Dance Music of Ireland. According to Frankie Gavin, the tune seems to have been first collected in Co. Armagh and included in the Petrie Collection compiled in the mid-nineteenth
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‘Robert Jordan’ was written by the blind harper and composer Turlough O’Carolan, 1670-1738. It was composed for a patron believed to be living in Co. Mayo at the time. O’Carolan is known for the Baroque style influences on his music. While elements of this can be heard in this pi
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The first jig is a composition of Thomas McElvogue who was born in Newcastle, England. An All-Ireland Senior Flute Fleadh Champion in 1990, he actually wrote this tune on the piano around 1984. A popular tune which has been known as ‘Tom McElvogue’s’, referring to the concertina
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This Medley was arranged for the Macalla na hÉireann Comhaltas Tour of Ireland 2015 as part of the show to commemorate the long sequence of events that led to the 1916 Easter Rising. The medley begins with ‘The Croppy Boy’, which remembers the 1798 Rebellion. This leads into a re
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‘Johnny Harley’s Reel’ is a composition of Chicago-based fiddler Liz Carroll. Liz has recorded it on one of her many albums, A Friend Indeed. Liz was born in Chicago to Irish parents from Limerick and Offaly. At the age of eighteen, Liz won the 1975 All-Ireland Fleadh Cheoil titl
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