Annotation:Pat Fagan

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PAT FAGAN. English, Jig. C Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. The piece sounds like a popular or music hall air of the time. The title may refer to a popular comic song by London singer and songwriter John Labern (c. 1815-c. 1880), published in 1843 called "Paddy's Museum" or "Paddy's Curiosity Shop," usually sung to the melody of "Rosin the Beau." The first line sometimes is given as "Have you heard of Pat Fagan's Museum?," however, most published versions go:

Did you hear tell of Paddy's Museum,
Its ancient and modern antiquities;
If not, when ye hear, ye'll see em,
Of their fame all old Ireland speaks.
I was always considered a lover
Of antiquities, sure from my birth,
And did somehow or other discover
What nobody else could on earth.

Cho:
So don't talk about Barnum's Museum;
If in passin' my house you will stop,
There's things, you'll be struck for to see 'em,
In Paddy's curiosity shop.

According to Richard Anthony Baker in his British Music Hall: An Illustrated History (2014, p. 15), Labern:

...wrote songs at one time considered obscene. Two collections, Labern's Comic Song Book and Labern's Original Comic Song Book were issued by a publisher of pornography, John Duncomb, of Holburn Hill. As a singer, Labern appeared at the Vauxhall Gardens and the Cyder Cellars. As a writer, he produced several songs for several of music hall's early entertainers, including W.G. Ross, J.W. Sharp and Sam Cowell...Labern's style eventually went out of favour. By 1873, he was running a shop near Tottenham Court Road selling newspapers and snuff.

Source for notated version: a c. 1847 music manuscript by Ellis Knowles, a musician from Radcliffe, Lancashire, England [Doyle].

Printed sources: Doyle (Plain Brown Tune Book), 1997; p. 16.

Recorded sources:

See also listing at:
See the Ballad Index entry [1]

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