Annotation:Confederacy (2)

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CONFEDERACY [2]. English, Country Dance Tune (6/4 or 9/8 time). G Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. The melody appears in all four editions of London publisher John Young's Second Volume of the Dancing Master [1] (1710-1728), and in the first edition of John Walsh's Second Book of the Compleat Country Dancing-Master (1719), and in Walsh & Randall's New Country Dancing Master, 2nd Book (1710). In the later editions of Walsh's Second Book a new tune appears under the "Confederacy" title (see "Confederacy (1) (The)").

The title of the tune perhaps refers "to the period of Irish self-government between the Rebellion of 1641 and the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in 1649. During this time, two-thirds of Ireland was governed by the Irish Catholic Confederation, also known as the "Confederation of Kilkenny" (based in the city of Kilkenny)" [2]. However, it is likely to have been a more topical reference to the passage of the Acts of Union in 1706 (Scotland) and 1707 (Great Britain) the united the two countries as Great Britain.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Young (Second Volume of the Dancing Master), 1710; p. 66.

Recorded sources:

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