Annotation:Top of Cork Road (1) (The)
X:1 T:Top of Cork Road [1], The M:6/8 L:1/8 R:Jig B:James Goodman music MS collection vol. 3, 1866, p. 130 F:http://goodman.itma.ie/volume-three#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=133&z=-5155.8953%2C0%2C18487.7906%2C6432 F:at Trinity College Dublin / Irish Traditional Music Archive goodman.itma.ie K:D Z:François-Emmanuel de Wasseige A|dAF DFA|Bed cBA|d3 efg|fdf ecA| dAF DFA|Bed cBA|g3 eag|fdd d2:| |:e|fdf fga|ece efg|f/g/ag fed|cAA A2 c| BGB Bcd|AFD DFA|g3 eag|fdd d2:|]
TOP OF CORK ROAD [1], THE. AKA - "Cork Road." AKA and see "Bonny Green Garters (1)." "Chemin de Cork (Le)," "Father O'Flynn," "Rollicking Irishman (The)," "To Drink with the Devil," "Trample Our Enemies," "Yorkshire Lasses (1)." Irish, Jig (6/8 time). D Major (most versions): C Major (Howe, Joyce). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. "Top of Cork Road", an Irish musical staple, is still a popular session tune. Bayard (1981) says that despite the 'Irish-ness' of its title, English versions in print predate Irish ones. He reports that Moffat found no earlier Irish versions that 1798, while Kidson found English versions (as "The Yorkshire Lasses") from 1789 and 1781. The second strain of “Top of Cork Road”, however, has extended antiquity in English music publications, and appears in John Walsh’s publications of the first half of the 18th century under the title “Scheme (The)”; the strain also appears as the second strain in one of Glasgow publisher James Aird’s late 18th century publications as “Irish Lilt (3).” The melody serves as the vehicle for Alfred Percival Graves’ song “Father O’Flynn,” published in 1874. New York researcher, musician and writer Don Meade says: “The title track of Tommy Peoples’ Shanachie LP The High Part of the Road is a back translation into English of an Irish translation of “The Top of the Road” (Ard an Bothar), which Breandan Breathnach in Ceol Rince na hEireann, vol. 1 mistakenly applied to the preceding jig in Ryan’s Mammoth Collection, a two-part version of ‘The Blooming Meadows.’”
The tune was cited as frequently having been played for Orange County, New York, country dances in the 1930's (Lettie Osborn, New York Folklore Quarterly). Perhaps the earliest recording is from 1905 by violinist Charles D’Alamaine, born in 1871 in England, who died in 1943. D’Alamaine immigrated to the United States in 1888, and by 1890 had established himself as “instructor on violin” in Evanston, Illinois; by 1910 he had removed to Yonkers, and in 1920 was a chiropractor in New York City (info. from Paul Gifford).
See also J.A. Boucher's Québecois adaptation "Chemin de Cork (Le)."
