Annotation:Nancy's Branching Tresses

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NANCY'S BRANCHING TRESSES (Cuil Craobaig Anna). Irish, Air (4/4 time). F Major (O'Neill): A Major (Clinton). Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB (Clinton): AABB (O'Neill). Paul de Grae suggests the tune may be a reworking of Edward Bunting's "Anna na geraoiḃ" (Nancy of the Branching Tresses). "Nancy of the Branching Tresses" is also the name of a poem by Belfast nationalist poet Mary Balfour (1780-1819), begins:

The star of evening slowly rose,
Through shades of twilight gleaming,
It shone to witness Erin's woes,
Her children's life-blood streaming;
'Twas then, sweet star, thy pensive ray
Fell on the cold unconscious clay,
That wraps the breast of Bessy Grey,
In softened lustre beaming.

Bessy or Betsy Grey/Gray was a real-life heroine of the Rising of '98, from County Down.

Source for notated version: credited to Chicago Police Sergeant James O'Neill, a fiddler originally from County Down and Francis O'Neill's collaborator [O'Neill].

Printed sources: Clinton (Gems of Ireland: 200 Airs), 1841; No. 57, p. 29O. 'Neill (Music of Ireland: 1850 Melodies), 1903; No. 374, p. 65.

Recorded sources:

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