Annotation:Rising Sun (2) (The)
X:1 T:Rising Sun [2], The M:C| L:1/8 R:”Stylish Reel” S:Daniel Kelleher S:P.D. Reidy music manuscript collection, London, 1890’s (No. 28) N:”Professor” Patrick Reidy of Castleisland was a dancing N:master engaged by the Gaelic League in London to teach N:dance classes. He introduced “Siege of Ennis” and “Walls N:of Limerick” ceili dances and wrote a treatise on dancing. N:Reidy's source, Daniel Kelleher, was variously said to have been N:from Castleisland, Sliabh Luachra region, County Kerry, or from N:the native-Irish speaking region of Achadh Bolg, Múscraigh, in N:County Cork. Reg Hall (2017) also found a reference to Kelleher N:as one of the soloists who accompanied step dancing exhibitions N:at Gaelic League events in London between 1897 and 1901. According N:to Hall, Kelleher was a young fiddle player active within the N:Gaelic League. His name is attached to thirteen tunes in Reidy’s N:collection. F: http://rarebooks.library.nd.edu/digital/bookreader/MSE_1434-1/#page/1/mode/1up Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:D (dD)DB (AD)FA|(3Bcd eg (fd)ec|(dD)DB (AG)FD|(3EFG FE (DF)Ac| (dD)DB (AD)FA|(3Bcd eg (fd)ec|(dc)dB (AG)FD|(3EFG FE (DF)Ac|| (de)fg (af)ed|(3cBA fa eafa|(de)fg a2 af|(gf)af (gf)ec| (de)fg (af)ed|(3cBA fa (ea)fa|(df)ff (dg)gg|(fe)dc dgfe||
The tunes "Old Blackthorn (The)," "Jolly Clam-diggers (1) (The)" and "Jolly Clam-diggers (2) (The)" are cognate in the first strain; the second strains differ, but the second strain of "Jolly Clam-diggers (2) (The)" has been moved to the third strain of "Rising Sun [2]" with an unrelated second strain inserted. Francis O'Neill was of the opinion the his source for the tune, fiddler Edward Cronin, had composed this 3rd strain (c.f. letter to Bernard Bogue, May 28, 1917), and did not make the connection that Cronin's source for it was actually "Clam-diggers," which had been printed in Ryan's Mammoth Collection in 1883. As researcher Paul de Grae puts it, "It appears that Cronin simply borrowed the second part of "Jolly Clam-duggers" to extend the present tune to three parts."
The tune was contained in the music manuscript collection sent to O'Neill around 1902 by "Professor" Patrick D. Reidy, a dancing master resident in London, although originally from Castleisland, north Co. Kerry. Reidy's collection contains tunes from fiddlers who accompanied dancing in the Gaelic League events in the 1890's and around the turn of the century. "The Rising Sun" was collected from a young fiddler named Daniel Kelleher, from Reidy's home town in Ireland, who is named as the source for a dozen or more tunes in the collection.
See also the similar "Countess of Lothean's Reel," "Countess of Louden's Reel,” and “Mahon's Reel.” Donegal fiddler Francie Byrne’s “Rising Sun” printed in An Ceol vol. 3 is a version of this tune.
