WILLY WALSH'S JIG (Port Uilliamin Uí Breatnaig). AKA and see “Merry Maiden (The).”Irish, Double Jig (6/8 time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. O'Neill's "Merry Maiden (The)" is identical throughout, save for the last two measures which lead to a cadence on the upper octave ("Willy Walsh's") and the lower octave ("Merry Maiden"). The first strain of the tune is also shared with "Wandering Minstrel (The)” and “Dandy Scholar (The)" but the rest of the tune parts differ. The title is presumably O'Neill's, and honors Patrolman William Walsh, one of the Irish emigrant musicians recruited by O'Neill for the Chicago Police force. O'Neill had high regard for this musicianship, as he expressed in Irish Folk Music: A Fascinating Hobby (1910, p. 43):
"Willy" Walsh, a native of Connemara, County Galway, was and is a rare musical genius.Self-taught from printed music appropriate to the instrument, he became an accomplished"Highland" piper and toured the country with Sells Brothers' circus one season. He nextturned his attention to the fiddle, but wind instruments being more to his liking, hechose the flute, on which difficult keyed instrument he became quite expert. For his ownpersonal use he has compiled a large volume of selections, principally from O'Neill'sMusic of Ireland, but transposed to the Highland pipe scale, which, by the way,
differs from that of all other musical instruments.
Martin O'Reilly
Additional notes Source for notated version : - "O'Reilly" [O'Neill]. O'Neill perhaps refers to Martin O'Reilly, "The Blind Piper of Galway" whom he devotes a sketch to in Irish Minstrels and Musicians (1913, pp. 239-240). A photograph of O'Reilly (taken by O'Neill's friend, Father Fielding) was inserted as a frontispiece in O'Neill's Dance Music of Ireland (1907). O'Reilly had a moment of fame at the turn of the 20th century, when he played at the Belfast Harp Festival in 1903, but died in the poorhouse in Gort a few years later.
Printed sources : - O'Neill (Dance Music of Ireland: 1001 Gems), 1907; No. 88, p. 30. O'Neill (Music of Ireland: 1850 Melodies), 1903; No. 823, p. 153.
See also listing at : Alan Ng's Irishtune.info [1]
