Annotation:Allowa Kirk
X:1 T:Allowa Kirk C:Joseph Lowe M:C L:1/16 R:Strathspey B: Joseph Lowe - Lowe's Collection of Reels, Strathspeys and Jigs, B:book 1 (1844–1845, p. 12) Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:G D2|Gd3Td3B A3GEA3|Gd3{e}d3B dB3g4|(ba)gf gB3 {B}A3GEA3|GD3E3F G4G2:| f2|gd3 (gab2) ae3e3f|g2d2 (gab2) e3gd3g|ca3Bg3 aA3A3B|GD3E3F G4 G2f2| g3d (gab2) ae3e3f|(3g2a2b2 (3a2g2f2 (3e2f2g2 (3d2c2B2|ca3Bg3 a3AAB3|GD3E3F G4G2||
ALLOWA KIRK. Scottish, Strathspey (whole time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. "Allowa Kirk" was composed by Joseph Lowe, who published a set of collections in the 1840's. This strathspey has become his most famous composition in Cape Breton, according to Paul Stewart Cranford (1995).
Alloway Kirk was built about the year 1516, and survived for two hundred and fifty years as a place of worship, until 1756, by which time it had fallen into disrepair. Its roof caved in soon thereafter, but the grounds were maintained. Scots poet Robert Burns knew it well as it was the burying place of his father William (whose original stone was chiped to pieces by souvenier hunters), referring to it as 'Alloway's auld haunted kirk'. It was the setting for his famous poem "Tam o' Shanter', based on local legends. Another Scots literary great, Robert Louis Stevenson, mentioned the church in his In the South Seas. He is on one of the Gilbert Islands and records:
The night was very dark. There was service in the church, and the building glimmered through all its crevices like a dim Kirk Allowa.
