Annotation:O'Connell's Daughter
O'CONNELL'S DAUGHTER. Irish, Reel (whole or cut time). C Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. "O'Connell's Daughter" is a reel in the music manuscript collection in the possession of biography:Rev. Luke Donnellan (1878-1952), Oriel region, south Ulster[1] It was printed in Donnellan's article "Oriel Songs and Dances" in the Journal of the County Louth Archeological Society, vol. II (No. 2, Sept., 1909; No. 1) and was somewhat garbled in the transcription. The key signature, for example, appears as two sharps, although clearly in the key of C major. The second strain is irregular and was reconstructed by modern fiddler Gerry O'Connor for his 2018 publication. Donnellan's second strain is shared with that of "Farewell to Connacht."
O'Neill's "She's a Daughter of Daniel O'Connell" is a musically different tune with a similar title. Both O'Neill's and Donnellan's titles may be associated with the widespread 19th century Irish ballad "Erin's Green Shore," which goes in part (in a variant collected in Canada):
She resembled the goddess of liberty,
And green was the mantle she wore,
Bound 'round with the shamrocks and roses,
That grew along Erin's green shore.
"I'm a daughter of Daniel O'Connell,
From England I lately came o'er;
I've come for to waken my brother,
That slumbers on Erin's green shore.
- ↑ Donnellan researcher Gerry O'Connor came to believe the ms. is not the work of the curate but rather was originally compiled by an unknown but able fiddler over the course of a playing lifetime, probably in the late 19th century. The ms. later came into the possession of Donnellan, who was also a fiddler.