Annotation:Sleep on my Kathleen dear
X:1 T:Song of Sorrow, The T:Sleep on, my Kathleen dear M:C L:1/8 R:Air Q:”Larghetto” B:William Forde – 300 National Melodies of the British Isles (c. 1841, p. 1, No. 2) B: https://www.itma.ie/digital-library/text/300-national-melodies-of-the-british-isles.-vol.-3-100.-irish-airs N:William Forde (c.1795–1850) was a musician, music collector and N:scholar from County Cork Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:C G|c3d cBAG|G2 Bd e2 g-e|dBAG E>DEG|G6z|| e|f3g fedB|d2 eg g3 e|f3g fege|dBAG E3e| f3g fe g2|G2 Bd e2 ge|dBAG E>DEG|G6z||
SLEEP ON MY KATHLEEN DEAR (Codal leat mo Caitilin dileas). Irish, Slow Air (4/4 time). G Major/Mixolydian. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (O’Farrell): AABB' (O’Neill). Paul de Grae provides the background to this air in his "Notes to Sources of Tunes in the O'Neill Collections" (2017), here reproduced:
O'Neill's version is practically identical to Crosby's song setting, including grace notes; the few minor differences may be errors.
Crosby may have borrowed in his turn, as his settings an almost exact transposition from A to G of "Ailleacan Dubh O!" in Joseph C. Walker's Historical Memoirs of the Irish Bards (No. IX of the "Irish Melodies"). O'Farrell has a similar but not identical setting also in G and under O'Neill's title. A close variant is "Fair Hills of Eire O! (The)", better known as the son "Bán-Chnoic Éirinn Ó."