Annotation:New Policeman (3) (The)
Back to New Policeman (3) (The)
NEW POLICEMAN [3], THE ("An garda nua" or "An siotmaor nuad"). AKA and see "Boil the Kettle Early (3)," "Cloontia Reel (The)," "Far Field (The)," "Lady Cork's Reel," "Michael Dwyer's Favourite," "Nancy in the Hobble," "Paddy Bolster's Reel," "Reel of Rio (The)," "Twin Brothers (1) (The)," "Tinker's Stick (The)." Irish, Reel. G Major. Standard tuning. AB (Breathnach, Cranitch): AAB (O'Neill). Edward Cronin, an elderly Tipperary fiddler, was the only other man O'Neill heard to play a variant of the melody. The alternate title "Lady Cork's Reel" is from the mid-19th century James Goodman Manuscripts at the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, while Peter Kennedy prints the variant "Nancy in the Hobble." "Ambrose Moloney's" is a related reel.
Source for notated version: flute player John Keegan/Seán Mac Aodhgain (Ireland) [Breathnach]; Francis O'Neill learned the tune from a young Limerick man named James Moore in Chicago during the winter of 1875. Moore, a flute player without an instrument, lived in a cold boarding-house across the street from O'Neill and often availed himself of O'Neill's hospitality, ensconcing himself on a "cozy seat on the woodbox back of our kitchen stove" while borrowing O'Neill's flute to play on. Moore, complained a frustrated O'Neill, often did not remember the names of the tunes he played ("a very common failing") and was lost track of when he moved to New York in the spring [O'Neill, Irish Folk Music]. The title is perhaps O'Neill's, or named by Moore for O'Neill, who had joined the Chicago police force in 1873 (Breathnach took his name for the tune from O'Neill).
Printed sources: Breathnach (CRÉ I), 1963; No. 99, p. 42. Cranitch (Irish Fiddle Book), 1996; No. 78, p. 155. O'Neill (Dance Music of Ireland: 1001 Gems), 1907; No. 511, p. 96. O'Neill (Music of Ireland), 1903; No. 1367.
Recorded sources:
See also listings at:
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [1]
Alan Ng's Irishtune.info [2]