Annotation:Cape Clear

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CAPE CLEAR. AKA and see "O! Sweet Adare." Irish, Slow Air (3/4 time). D Minor (Joyce): E Minor (Ó Canainn): B Minor (Stanford/Petrie). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. Cape Clear, Oileán Chléire, is Ireland's southernmost inhabited island, eight miles off the coast of County Cork. It is three miles long by a mile wide and features spectacular landscape, cliffs and views. The island is rich in history with Megalithic standing stones, a 5,000 year-old passage grave, and a ruined church dating from the 12th century. The 14th century O'Driscoll castle was cannonaded in the early 1600's but still remains. The patron of the island is Saint Ciarán, allegedly the earliest of Ireland's four pre-Patrician saints. Today the island is famous for tourism, bird watching, and for the wind-generators which produce electricity for the island's thousand or so permanent inhabitants.

George Petrie included the tune twice in his collection; as an untitled air (No. 79) and with the heading "Irish setting of 'Black eyed Susan'" (No. 729), both tunes nearly identical. See also O'Neill's version, "O! Sweet Adare."

Source for notated version: "From O'Driscoll of Clonakilty" [Joyce].

Printed sources: Joyce (Old Irish Folk Music and Songs), 1909; No. 653, p. 329. Ó Canainn (Traditional Slow Airs of Ireland), 1995; No. 67, p. 59. Stanford/Petrie (Complete Collection), 1905; No. 79 & 729, pp. 20 & 183.

Recorded sources:

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