LIGHT AND AIRY [2] (Eadtrom agus beoda). Irish, Slip Jig (9/8 time). A Mixolydian. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. 'Light and Airy' is often a phrase used for the graceful dance the slip jig, traditionally a girl's or woman's dance.
Marin O'Reilly
Additional notes Source for notated version : - "O'Reilly" [O'Neill]. O'Neill may be referring to Martin O'Reilly [1], "The Blind Piper of Galway", the subject of a brief sketch in Irish Minstrels and Musicians (1913, pp. 239-240). O'Reilly played at the Belfast Harp Restival in 1903 (the same year O'Neill published Music of Ireland), where he "was the hero of the occasion" on account of his superb playing.
Perhaps a more likely source, and one mentioned in the introduction to O'Neill's 1907 "Dance Music of Ireland" collection, would be Philip J. O'Reilly, a fiddler originally from County Cavan. O'Neill, in a 1906 letter to Alfred Percival Graves, described him asa "good player [who] had many old manuscripts."
Paul de Grae opines: "The second part, with its accidentals and broken crotchets, hints at drawing room or ballroom origin for this tune"[1]
↑Paul de Grae, “Notes on Sources of Tunes in the O’Neill Collections”, 2017 [1].
↑Paul de Grae, “Notes on Sources of Tunes in the O’Neill Collections”, 2017 [1].
↑Paul de Grae, “Notes on Sources of Tunes in the O’Neill Collections”, 2017 [1].
.
Printed sources : - O'Neill (Krassen), 1976; p. 79. O'Neill (Music of Ireland: 1850 Melodies), 1903; No. 1119, p. 211.
