Annotation:Garden of Daisies (1) (The)

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GARDEN OF DAISIES [1], THE (Gort Na Noininead/Noinin). Irish, Long (Set) Dance (cut time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABC (O'Neill/1850): AA'BB' (O'Neill/1001). This once popular set dance, remarks O'Neill (1913), was derived from a slow song air which was familiar to him from his boyhood days in Ulster. He remembered one line:

My hook began to glitter, my flail it was in order.

It was not until O'Neill's next door neighbor, Sergeant Michael Hartnett, gave him the tune as it was played where he lived, however, that O'Neill was able to obtain a full setting. As luck would have it:

While enjoying a steamboat excursion on the Drainage Canal a week or so later, what should I hear on the boat but another of our long-lost tune, played in fine style by Early and McFadden! It had been sent them by (piper) Pat Tuohey, who learned it from a fiddler recently arrived in Boston, and who in turn had picked it up from Stephenson, the great Kerry piper.

O'Neill states two 'inferior' settings appear in the Stanford/Petrie Complete Collection of Irish Music. See also note for the song "Palatine's Daughter (The)," sung to this tune. Paul de Grae believes "Garden of Daisies" was derived from the air "Sliabh Geal gCua Na Feile."

In Irish tradition "Garden of Daisies" is one of the four tunes called the Traditional Sets (i.e. set dances), along with "Job of Journeywork (1)," "Blackbird (1) (The)" and "St. Patrick's Day."

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: O'Neill (Music of Ireland: 1850 Melodies), 1903; No. 1797, p. 337. O'Neill (Dance Music of Ireland: 1001 Gems), 1907; No. 974, p. 167.

Recorded sources: KEENAN 1, Paddy Keenan - "Na Keen Affair." Shamrock 1235 (78 RPM), Michael Gallagher (uilleann pipes) {c. 1920's}.

See also listing at:
Hear piper Michael Gallagher's 78 RPM recording at the Internet Archive [1]

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