Annotation:Munster Gimlet
MUNSTER GIMLET. AKA and see "Kitty Come Down to Limerick," "Plumkum," "Whack at the Whigs (A)," "Will You Come Down to Limerick? (1)." Irish, Slip Jig. G Dorian. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB'. The famed early 20th century Irish-American piper Patsy Touhey (1865-1923), called the tune by this title and recorded it on a cylinder in the first decade of the 20th century.
Kitty come down, come down,
Kitty come down to Limerick.
I knew by the glint in her eye
That she wanted a touch of the gimlet!
A gimlet is a tool for boring holes in wood; thus a bawdy connotation.
Francis O'Neill, in Irish Folk Music, a Fascinating Hobby (1910), records:
An uncommonly fine tune of this class [i.e. slip or hop jigs], in three strains, obtained from John Ennis, is "Will You Come Down to Limerick?" Simpler versions are known to old-time musicians of Munster and Connacht, and in Chicago. Ennis had no monopoly of it, for it was well known to Delaney, Early, and McFadden. As an old-time Slip Jig it seems to have been called "The Munster Gimlet," a singularly inapt title; but when it came into vogue as a song name, we are unable to say.
See also the related "Leitrim Jig (1) (The)."
