Annotation:Pretty Girls of Mayo
Back to Pretty Girls of Mayo
PRETTY GIRLS OF MAYO (Cailini deasa Mhuigheo). AKA and see “Music in the Forge,” “My Sweetheart Jane,” "Peigín Leitir Mór," "Sweeney's Reel," "Sweet Biddy of Ballyvourney," “Tameen's Reel.” Irish, Reel. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Breathnach, Cranitch): AA’B (Taylor): AABB (Mulvihill): AA’BB’ (Harker/Rafferty)1. Brendan Breathnach notes that he found an untitled version in P. W. Joyce's Ancient Irish Music (Dublin, 1912 {reprint}, 51). The variant in O’Neill, “Sweet Biddy of Ballyvourney,” has a different second part, which Breathnach says does not go with the tune. The song "Peigín Leitir Mór" is sung to this air in Conamara, as is the song “Goodbye Mursheen Durkin.” The reel was first recorded by south County Sligo fiddler Paddy Killoran (1904-1965) in New York in 1934.
Sources for notated versions: fiddler Tommy Potts (Ireland) [Breathnach]; Paddy Cronin [Mulvihill]; Paddy Killoran [Lyth]; set dance music recorded at Na Píobairí Uilleann in the 1980’s [Taylor].
Printed sources: Breathnach (CRÉ I), 1963; No. 75, p. 34. Cranitch (Irish Fiddle Book), 1996; p. 95. Harker (300 Tunes from Mike Rafferty), 2005; No. 142, p. 43. Lyth (Bowing Styles in Irish Fiddle Playing, vol. 1); p. 62. Mulvihill (1st Collection), 1986; No. 51, p. 13. Taylor (Music for the Sets: Yellow Book), 1995; p. 7. Treoir, vol. 36, No. 2, 2004; p. 25.
Recorded sources: Yazoo Records, Paddy Killoran – “The Wheels of the World, vol. 2.”
See also listings at:
Jane Keefer’s Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources []
Alan Ng’s Irishtune.info []