Annotation:McElligott's Fancy

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McELLIGOTT'S FANCY (Roga Mic Elligott). AKA and see "Buck From the Mountain (The)," "Minstrel's Fancy," "Pioneer Clog (The)," "Hanover Hornpipe." Irish, Hornpipe (whole or cut time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The melody can be found under a variety of titles, or as an untitled piece; there seems to have been no particular name that "stuck" for this piece, although widespread. The hornpipe appears as an untitled southwest Pennsylvania-collected clog in Samuel Bayard's Dance to the Fiddle, March to the Fife (1981; No. 416, pp. 395-396) collection, and as an untitled hornpipe in the 1890's music manuscript collection of "Professor" Patrick D. Reidy. Reidy was a London dancing master employed to teach dancing at Gaelic League functions, and was a correspondent of Francis O'Neill's. He sent O'Neill a music manuscript book around 1902 with thirty-nine dance tunes played by musicians who accompanied dancers.

The Irish Music Club, c. 1903. John McElligott is at the beginning of the 2nd row, extreme left (Father Dollard's hand is resting on his shoulder). Capt. Francis O'Neill is in the top row, 4th from the left.

Source for notated version: "McElligott" [O'Neill]. The source is not named in O'Neill's Irish Minstrels and Musicians (1913). However, fiddler John McElligott appears in a picture of the Irish Music Club of Chicago in the first years of the 20th century.

Printed sources: O'Neill (Music of Ireland: 1850 Melodies), 1903; No. 1778, p. 331.

Recorded sources:

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