Annotation:Munster Gimlet

Back to Munster Gimlet

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MUNSTER GIMLET. AKA and see "Kitty Come Down to Limerick," "Plumkum," "Whack at the Whigs (A)," "Will You Come Down to Limerick? (1)." Irish, Slip Jig. G Dorian. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB'. The famed early 20th century Irish-American piper Patsy Touhey (1865-1923), called the tune by this title and recorded it on a cylinder in the first decade of the 20th century.

Kitty come down, come down,
Kitty come down to Limerick.
I knew by the glint in her eye
That she wanted a touch of the gimlet!

A gimlet is a tool for boring holes in wood; thus a bawdy connotation.

Francis O'Neill, in Irish Folk Music, a Fascinating Hobby (1910), records:

An uncommonly fine tune of this class [i.e. slip or hop jigs], in three strains, obtained from John Ennis, is "Will You Come Down to Limerick?" Simpler versions are known to old-time musicians of Munster and Connacht, and in Chicago. Ennis had no monopoly of it, for it was well known to Delaney, Early, and McFadden. As an old-time Slip Jig it seems to have been called "The Munster Gimlet," a singularly inapt title; but when it came into vogue as a song name, we are unable to say.

See also the related "Leitrim Jig (1) (The)."

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Kerr (Merry Melodies, vol. 2), c. 1880's; No. 289, p. 32. Levey (First Collection of the Dance Music of Ireland), 1858; No. 27, p. 11.

Recorded sources: Homestead Records, Patsy Touhey - "The Piping of Patsy Touhey."

See also listing at:
Alan Ng's Irishtune.info [1]
Hear Patsy Touhey's cylinder recording at the Comhaltas Archive [2]

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