Annotation:Swallow's Tail Reel (The)

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X:1 T:Swallow’s Tail, The T:Pride of the Ball (The) M:C L:1/8 R:Reel B:Stephen Grier music manuscript collection (Book 2, c. 1883, No. 152, pp. 32-33) B:http://grier.itma.ie/book-two#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=31&z=-759.8197%2C183.8508%2C4495.7388%2C2304.1667 N:Stephen Grier (c. 1824-1894) was a piper and fiddler from N:Newpark, Bohey, Gortletteragh, south Co. Leitrim. Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:Amix e2 cA eAcA|Bc/d/ ef gfge|d2 Bd dGBG|GABc dcdf| eA cB/A/ eA cB/A/|Bc/d/ ef gefg|afge dfeA|A2 AB A4|| a2 ab aged|Bdef gfge|d2 Bd dGBG|GABc defg| a2 ab aged|Bdef gefg|afge dfec|A2 AB A4| a2 ab aged|Bdef gfge|d2 Bd dGBG|GABc defg| afbf gfed Bdef|gefg afge|dfec A2 af||

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SWALLOW'S TAIL REEL, THE ("An earbuill ainleog," "Earball an ainleoige," “Driobhall na fáinleoige” or "Eireaball na fáinleoige"). AKA - "Swallowtail Reel." AKA and see "Cally in the Grove," "Family Estate (The)," "Girl with the Handsome Face (The),” "Joshua Gray," "McKenna's Reel," "Miss Wright's Reel," "Mollie's Bonnet," "Molloy's Night Cap," "Molly's Night Cap," "Pigeon on the Gate (5)," "Pigeon's Tail (The)," "Pride of the Ball (The)," "Queen's Wedding (The)," "Steeple Chase (1)," “Swallowtail Coat (The),” "Take Your Hand Away," "Village Reel." Irish, New England, Shetland; Reel. Ireland; County Sligo, Kilkenny, Leitrim, Donegal, Tyrone. Shetland, Yell. A Dorian (Am). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (O'Neill/1850): AABB (Allan, Breathnach, Brody, Flaherty, Mallinson, Miller & Perron, O'Neill/Krassen, Sweet, Tolman, Tubridy). "Swallow's Tail" is a widespread reel with numerous variants and titles, current in several traditions. Mulvihill gives “Swallow’s Tail” as an accompaniment for the sixteen-hand reel. Caoimhin Mac Aoidh (1994) states the tune is more correctly called in County Donegal the “Swallow’s Tail Coat,” named after the long split-tail coats dancing masters wore. The late Donegal fiddler Danny O’Donnell (1910-2001) said that it was a very popular reel in his home of The Rosses, Donegal, for a particular type of dance, and that people in the lower Rosses knew it under the title “The Queen’s Wedding.” Breathnach (1985) gives titles for the tune in Ulster as “McKenna’s Reel,” “The Queen’s Wedding,” “Mollie’s Bonnet,” “Molloy’s Night Cap,” and “Joshua Gray.” Paddy Kelly (originally of Co. Tyrone) called the tune “McKenna’s Reel” after a local dancer named McKenna. The names under which it appears in O’Neill are “The Swallow’s Tail,” “The Steeplechase” and “Take your Hand Away,” while Ryan’s/Cole’s has it as “The Pigeon on the Gate” and “Pride of the Ball (The).” P.W. Joyce collected the tune in the mid-19th century in Kilkenny and printed it as an untitled reel in D Mixolydian in his Old Irish Folk Music and Songs (1909). Accordion player Joe Burke (b. 1939), originally from Coorhoor, above Loughrea in County Galway, has an early playing memory of fiddler Martin Hanny on a settle bed at a ‘station’ (house mass) fiddling this tune (Vallely & Piggott, Blooming Meadows, 1998), which so impressed him that he wished to get a similar sound on his accordion. An early recording of “The Swallow’s Tail” was by Ballybay, County Monaghan, piper Robert William “Willie” Clarke (1889-1934) for Columbia Records of London in 1928, for a series of records entitled “The Pipes of Three Nations” (which included a Highland piper and a Northumbrian small-piper). See also the related melody “Grand Gates of Annesbrook.” “McKenna’s (2)” is similar enough that it is sometimes called “The Old Swallowtail.”