Annotation:Hut in the Bog (3)

Back to Hut in the Bog (3)

---

HUT IN THE BOG [3], THE (An Bothán sa bPortach). AKA - "Hunt in the Bog." AKA and see "Cashmere Shawl (The), "On the Road to Lurgan." Irish, Reel. A Dorian. Standard tuning (fiddle). ABC. O'Neill's "Cashmere Shawl (The)" has the first and third parts of this tune. The tune was first recorded under this title by the Belhavel Trio, of whom Reg Hall records (in his notes to "Voice of the People, vol. 20"):

Joe and Tommy Liddy, born respectively in 1904 and 1908, were brought up by their parents at the post office in the small village of Killargue near Dromahair, Co Leitrim. their mother and father both played the ten-key melodeon, and all the children were encouraged to play either the melodeon or the fiddle. The can be little doubt that their family took part with their neighbours in country-house dancing and music-making. In late adolescence, Tommy acquired a two-row button-key accordeon set in the new tuning of D/D#, which gave him the ability to play in pitch with the fiddle and the flute. While in New York in 1928 and 1929, he played at parties and in dance halls with some outstanding immigrant musicians, most notably the flute-player, John Kenna from Co. Leitrim and the Sligo fiddle-players, Michael Coleman and Jimmy Morrison. Joe and Tommy later settled in Dublin, where they met Ned O'Gorman from Collinstown, Coole, Co. Westmeath. He, too, had been born into a country-house dance background in the 1890s and was reputed to have been a fine dancer in the set. His piping, however, was not from his domestic music-making background, but was the product of the pipers' club movement that was influential in his part of the country. Joe, Tommy and Ned took an active part in the pre-war Irish-dance scene in Dublin. The formed The Belhavel Trio in 1932 specifically to broadcast on national radio from station 2RN, and later they formed the nucleus of a larger band of Dublin-based West of Ireland rural musicians, the original Kincora Ceilidh Band. Joe had joined the police as a young man and he also played in the popular Dublin Metropolitan Police Ceilidh Band, a curious ensemble of traditional ear-players and legitimate reading musicians.

Paddy Killoran also recorded the tune in the 78 RPM era under the title "On the Road to Lurgan."

Source for notated version: accordionist Sonny Brogan (County Sligo/Dublin, Ireland) [Breathnach].

Printed sources: Breathnach (CRÉ I), 1963; No. 109, p. 46. Treoir.

Recorded sources: Topic TSCD 602, Belhavel Trio - "Irish Dance Music" (1995. A reissue of the 1938 original).

See also listing at:
Alan Ng's Irishtune.info [1]

---