Annotation:Monks of the Screw (The)

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MONKS OF THE SCREW, THE (Bratar na n-ol). AKA and see "Ta we i n-eagmais ach iocfadh ie fos" (I'm in debt but I'll pay them yet). Irish, Air (6/8 or 9/8 time). D Major (O'Neill): C Dorian (Stanford/Petrie). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. This is a version of the melody "Ta Me I n-Eagmais Ach Iocfadh Me Fos." The Monks of the Screw were a convivial social club that existed in Dublin between the years 1779 to 1785 ('screw' means drink). Their "Prior" was a famous lawyer named John Philpot Curran who wrote a song called "The Monks of the Screw" to a tune that collector George Petrie (1855) believed he learned "in his own loved county of Cork." Curran's daughter Sarah was engaged to be married to Robert Emmet, one of the leaders of the failed rising of 1798, who was captured, hanged and beheaded. There is a modern-day traditional band from the Slibah Luachra region of County Kerry/Cork that call themselves The Monks of the Screw.

Source for notated version: "From William H. Curran, Esq." [Stanford/Petrie].

Printed sources: O'Neill (Music of Ireland: 1850 Melodies), 1903; No. 20, p. 4. Stanford/Petrie (Complete Collection), 1905; No. 490, p. 124.

Recorded sources:

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