Annotation:Mountcashel's Brigade

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MOUNTCASHEL'S BRIGADE. AKA - "Mount Cashel's Brigade." AKA and see "Enrico." Irish, March (4/4 time). D Major (Roche): A Major (Laufman). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Laufman): AABBCC (Roche). Mountcashel's Brigade; or, The Rescue of Cremona (1882) was an historical novel by Charles Graham Halpine (1829-1868), born in Oldcastle, Co. Meath. Halpine was a Young Irelander who worked briefly in London before emigrating to America, where he became proprietor of The New York Citizen. He is also known for his comic works. The title of his novel refers to the exodus of Irish troops in 1690 during the Williamite Wars. In exchange for a French contingent, around 5,000 Irish soldiers sailed from Kinsale to Brest in France under the command of Justin MacCarthy, Viscount Mountcashel. This group formed a foreign brigade within the French army, and received a higher rate of pay than the average French soldier. In 1702, while defending Cremona, the Irish foiled a surprise attack by Prince Eugene and the imperial army, perhaps their best-known engagement while in the service of King Louis XIV.

Phillip Heath-Coleman finds "Mountcashel's Brigade" to be a three part version of the English tune "Enrico," popular at English sessions. The latter two strains are shared with the two-part "Enrico." Fr. John Quinn further identifies one of the strains as belonging to "Dog and Gun."

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Laufman (Okay, Let's Try a Contra, Men on the Right, Ladies on the Left, Up and Down the Hall), 1973; p. 5 (as "Mount Cashel's Brigade"). Roche (Collection of Traditional Irish Music, vol. 3), 1927; No. 198, p. 77.

Recorded sources:

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