Annotation:Doran's Ass
DORAN'S ASS. AKA and see "Finnegan's Wake (2)?," "Paddy Doyle's Ass," "Spanish Lady (The)," "Thady Regan." English, American; Polka, March or Reel. USA, southwestern Pa. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. According to Bayard (1981) the title is the one the tune is most commonly known by, and comes from a "stage Irish" song [Roud No. 1010]. A variant of it was published by J.O. Bebbington sometime before 1859, and archived at the Bodleian Library. It was widely disseminated, with versions collected in much of the English-speaking world, and was known, for example, in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Pennsylvania as a folk song (where it was sometimes called "Dolan's Ass"). The first couple of stanzas of the comic words (which include the Irish tropes of drunkenness, superstitiousness and gullibility) go:
One Paddy Doyle lived near Killarney,
And loved a maid called Biddy Tool,
His tongue I own was tipp'd with blarney,
Which seemed to him a golden rale.
From day to day she was hie colleen,
Then often to himself would say,
What need I care ? sure here's my drollion
A coming to met me on the way.
Tol lol, &c,
One heavenly night in last November,
The moon shining brightly from above,
What night it was I don't remember,
But Paddy want to meet his lobe,
That day Paddy took some liquor,
Which made his spirits light and gay,
He says, What's the use of moving quicker,
For I know she'll meet me on the way.
Tol lol, &c.
"Doran's Ass" also forms part of the Irish quadrille "Off to Skelligs--2nd Figure."
