Annotation:Fairhaired Boy (1) (The)

Back to Fairhaired Boy (1) (The)

---

FAIRHAIRED BOY [1], THE ("Bouchaleen Bawn" or "An Buac{h}aillín Bán"). AKA and see "Boys from Carrickroe (The)," "Buachaillin Ban (1)," "Fair Headed Lad (The)," "Fraher's Jig," "Freheen Jig (The)," "Giolla na Gruaige Baine," "Last of the Lot (The)," "Miss Casey (1)." Irish, Double Jig. A Mixolydian (O'Neill/Krassen): A Dorian (Breathnach, Roche, Taylor): A Major (O'Neill/1850): A Minor (Connolly & Martin, O'Neill/1915, Roche/vol.1). Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB (Breathnach): AABB (Harker/Rafferty, Roche/vol.1): AABB' (O'Neill, Taylor): AA'BB' (Connolly & Martin). "An Buachall Bán" (The Fair Lad) is an allegorical name for the Young Pretender, Bonnie Prince Charlie Stuart. The tune appears in the O'Rourke manuscripts as "Kerryman's Rambles (The)" and as an untitled jig in A major in Kerr's Merry Melodies (c. 1886), Book 4, p. 25.

Sources for notated versions: piper Pat Broohy/Padhraic Ó Broithe (Ireland) [Breathnach]; Abram Sweetman Beamish, a native of the adjoining parish to that of Caheragh, County Cork, where Francis O'Neill was born-although O'Neill got seven tunes from Beamish, only the "Fairhaired Boy" and "Tie the Bonnet" were previously known to him despite their common place of origin [O'Neill]; New Jersey flute player Mike Rafferty, born in Ballinakill, Co. Galway, in 1926 [Harker]; "From O'Neill's collection" (1787) [Stanford/Petrie]. The attribution is to the music manuscript collection of County Kilkenny musician Patrick O'Neill (1765–1832), now in the hands of the National Library of Ireland (NLI). According to researcher Nichlas Carolan [An Píobaire, vol. 5, No. 5, 2009, pp. 18-19], "Patrick O’Neill or Pádraig Ó Niall (1765–1832) was a prosperous miller and farmer of some 80 acres at Owning, Piltown, Co. Kilkenny (in the south-east of the county, near Carrick-on-Suir).[7] His son Cornelius (1830–97), also of Owning, seems to have written one of the NLI music manuscripts. By avocation Patrick O’Neill was, as well as being an uilleann piper, a fiddle player[8] and seemingly a singer, and an Irish-language poet,[9] known locally as ‘An Muilleoir Meidhreach’ (the merry miller). The manuscripts contain tunes from a variety of sources, including Scottish, English and Continental tunes as well as Irish, not uncommon in period manuscripts, which seems to assert that musicians of the era were interested in good tunes, no matter what the source.

Printed sources: Breathnach (CRÉ I), 1963; No. 20, p. 9. Connolly & Martin (Forget Me Not), 2002; pp. 28-29. Harker (300 Tunes from Mike Rafferty), 2005; No. 237, p. 73. O'Neill (O'Neill's Irish Music), 1915; No. 140, p. 81. O'Neill (Krassen), 1976; p. 42. O'Neill (Dance Music of Ireland: 1001 Gems), 1907; No. 158, p. 41. Roche Collection of Traditional Irish Music, vol. 1, 1912, No. 120, p. 50. Roche (Collection of Traditional Irish Music, vol. 3), 1927; No. 110, p. 34 (appears as "Giolla na Gruaige Baine"). Standord (Complete Collection of Petrie's Irish Music), 1905; No. 1257. Taylor (Where's the Crack?), 1989; p. 21. Treoir, vol. 45, No. 1, 2013, p. 32.

Recorded sources: Gael-Linn CEF 176, Jackie Daly - "Many's a Wild Night" (learned from the playing of Kiskeam fiddle player Maurice O'Keeffe).

See also listings at:
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [1]
Alan Ng's Irishtune.info [2]

---