Annotation:Rotten Spuds (The)
X:1 T:Rotten Spuds, The M:C| L:1/8 R:Reel B:Rev. Luke Donnellan music manuscript collection (c. 1909, Oriel B:region, south Ulster) K:C c2Bc ABGB|cBcd gdBG|c2 Bc...
ROTTEN SPUDS, THE. Irish, Reel (cut time). C Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. "The Rotten Spuds", a title evocative of the horrors of the Great Famine of 1847-1851, is contained in the music manuscript collection of curate and fiddler biography:Rev. Luke Donnellan (1878-1952), Oriel region, south Ulster[1]. The fungus wikipedia:Phytophthora_infestans is responsible for the ruin of the Irish potato crops in the mid-19th century, turning whole fields rotten in days. Since potatoes were a subsistence crop of the Irish peasant, famine resulted, the misery potentiated by evictions when the peasant economy failed.
The tonality of the melody is indeterminate: the melody words as well in the dorian as it does in the minor mode (which matters in the 2nd strain only), and the second strain strongly suggests D dorian (or, if the 'f' is sharped, in D mixolydian).
- ↑ Donnellan researcher Gerry O'Connor came to believe the ms. is not the work of the curate but rather was originally compiled by an unknown but able fiddler over the course of a playing lifetime, probably in the late 19th century. The ms. later came into the possession of Donnellan, who was also a fiddler.