Annotation:James Irwin

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JAMES IRWIN. AKA - "Shannon Side." Irish, Air (4/4 time). C Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. There was a James Irwin of Streamstown, about whom the elderly harper Arthur O’Neill, successor in the north to Carolan, remarked to Belfast collector Edward Bunting (1773–1843), “I am totally at a loss to describe that gentleman’s manner of living at his own house, and amongst his tenantry. He had an ample fortune, and was passionately fond of music. He had four sons and three daughters, who were all proficient; no instrument was unknown to them. There was at one time a meeting in his house of forty-six musicians, who played in the following order: the three Miss Irwins at the piano; myself at the harp; gentlemen flutes, six; gentlemen violincellos, two; common pipers, ten; gentlemen fiddlers, twenty; gentlemen clarionets, four.”

Source for notated version: "Patrick MacDowell, the distinguished sculptor" (1799-1870).

Printed sources: Joyce (Old Irish Folk Music and Song), 1909; No. 514, p. 279.

Recorded sources:

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