Annotation:O'Connell's Welcome to Clare (1)

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O'CONNELL'S WELCOME TO CLARE. AKA and see "Teetotaler's Fancy (The)," "Teetotaler's Reel." Irish, Jig. C Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. Composed (according to Francis O'Neill) in 1828 by the famous Galway piper biography:Paddy Conneely (d. 1850), who was the source of many of the tunes of the Irish collectors Joyce and Petrie. O'Neill gives a substantial biographical sketch of Conneely in his Irish Minstrels and Musicians (1913, pp. 212-215).

Paddy Conneely, from the Irish Penny Journal, 1840

Conneely was much admired as a convivial musical companion in his hey-day, although he died in reduced circumstances during the Great Famine years. O'Neill remarks:

Although he had a wonderful repertory of Irish music, instead of firing away with some lively reel or still more animated Irish jig, he pestered [Irish collector George] Petrie, in spite of his intensely Irish nationality, with a set of quadrilles or a gallope such as he was called on to play by the ladies and gentlemen at the balls in Galway.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: O'Neill (Irish Minstrels and Musicians), 1913; p. 215.

Recorded sources:




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