Annotation:Delaney's Frolics

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DELANEY'S FROLICS. AKA and see "The Dunboyne Straw-Plaiters," "Ha'p'orth of Tea." Irish, Reel. D Mixolydian ('A' part) & D Major ('B' part). Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. The tune was named for Chicago piper Barney Delaney, a contemporary of collector and flute player Captain Francis O'Neill. Delaney was O'Neill's brother-in-law, who found him a job on the Chicago police force. O'Neill was critical of Delaney, however, not for his piping ability, which he respected, but for his miserliness with tunes which O'Neill feared would by lost when Delaney died. "Delaney's Frolics" was first recorded about the year 1900 by piper Patsy Tuohey, on a privately made and issued cylinder recording. Tuohey, originally from Galway, was the outstanding professional piper of his era and managed to make a living touring the United States along with his wife. The first publication of the melody was in P.W. Joyce's Old Irish Folk Music and Songs (1909), under the title "The Dunboyne Straw-Plaiters," obtained from a Dublin piper who had picked up the tune in North Kildare.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: O'Neill (Waifs and Strays of Gaelic Melody), 1922; No. 242.

Recorded sources: Tara CD4011, Frankie Gavin - "Fierce Traditional" (2001).

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