Annotation:Conchubhar Mhac Coiréibhe

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CONCHUBHAR MHAC COIRÉIBHE (Conchobhar Mac Areibhe, or Conor Macareavy). AKA and see "Girls Have You Seen George?" (A chailíní, an bhfaca tú Seóirse?," "Sgaruint na gCompanach" (The Parting of Friends). Irish, Air (4/4 time). B Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). AA'B. An air, with variation sets for the melody credited (by Edward Bunting) to harper Cornelius Lyons, in 1700. The tune is also found, states O'Sullivan (1983), in the Neal's Celebrated Irish Tunes (Dublin, c. 1726, p. 18) and Mulholland's Ancient Irish Airs (c. 1810, No. 36). One of Lyon's friends, harper Turlough Carolan's, best poem, the elegy on the death of his wife, Mary Maguire, is said to have been set to this tune. Bunting (1840) remarks:

The melody is extremely ancient, and variations by Lyons (Lord Antrim’s harper) are excellent. The modern musician will be surprised to find such an admirable arrangement by a person ignorant (as it is presumed all the Irish harpers at the beginning of the eighteenth century were) of modern musical science.

Source for notated version: Bunting noted the tune from harper Denis Hempson at Magilligan in 1792.

Printed sources: O'Sullivan/Bunting, 1983; No. 11, pp. 16-17.

Recorded sources: