Annotation:La Cosa Mulligan
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LA COSA MULLIGAN. AKA and see "Jackson's Reel (4)." Irish, Reel. Composed by famed Donegal fiddler Tommy Peoples and named for Mulligan records, with whom Peoples was briefly involved in the 1970's. The title is a play on "La Cosa Nostra," the Italian pseudonym for the Mafia, and one may surmise that Peoples' feelings about the record company were not very flattering (see also "Don't Touch that Green Linnet"). Peoples has said he composed the tune in the late 1960's, although perhaps it was untitled until the incident with Mulligan gave inspiration for a name. Peoples' is known to be a modest man, and his composition apparently circulated independent of attribution or title. Peoples' claim actually surfaced with his 1998 recording "The Quiet Glen." "Jackson's" is perhaps a more popular title, stemming from the recording on Frankie Gavin's first solo album, in which it appears as the first of two tunes in a set called "Jackson's Reels" (the second tune in the set is "Jackson's Reel (3)").
Source for notated version:
Printed sources: Breathnach (CRÉ II), 1976; No. 163 (appears as "Gan anim/Untitled"). Peoples (Fifty Irish Fiddle Tunes), 1986; 35.
Recorded sources: Shanachie 34009, "Frankie Gavin with Alec Finn" (appears erroneously as "Jackson's"). CCE CL-13, Tommy Peoples - "Tommy Peoples" (1976). Tommy Peoples - "The Quiet Glen."
See also listing at:
Alan Ng's Irishtune.info [1]
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [2]