Annotation:Lucy Farr's Barn Dance

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LUCY FARR'S. AKA and see "Eight Step Polka." Irish, English; Barndance. B Flat Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. From the late Galway-born (Baunyknave, Ballinakill) fiddler Lucy Farr (1910-2003), who lived in England from the year 1935, where she moved to take up a career in nursing. Farr, like Aggie Whyte a representative of the East Galway fiddling tradition, can be heard playing the tune on "Heart and Home," an archival recording from 1991-1992. In London she was a member of the Four Courts Ceili Band and the Rakes. The tune is also played in other keys; Mairtin O'Connor plays it in D Major.

Researcher Conor Ward finds what appears to be a cognate tune in the c. 1930 music manuscript from the Duffy family of Legga, Moyne, County Longford, as the first figure in a set of quadrilles labelled "Spanish Scotish [sic]." A very similar tune is the "Eight Step Polka" from County Donegal, and, albeit much more distanced, the Shetland Islands "Seven Step Polka (Da)."

Source for notated version:

Printed sources:

Recorded sources: Celtic Crossings CD0299-02, Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin & Patrick Ourceau - "Tracin" (1999). Green Linnett GLCD 1155, Martin Hayes -"Under the Moon" (1995). Old Hat Music OH!02, "The Old Hat Dance Band" (1992).

See also listing at:
Alan Ng's Irishtune.info [1]