Annotation:Caroline O'Neill's Hornpipe
X:1 T:Caroline O'Neill's Hornpipe M:C| L:1/8 R:Hornpipe S:O'Neill - Dance Music of Ireland: 1001 Gems (1907), No. 938 Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:G Bc|(3dcd gd BGAB|(3cBc ec AGFA|DGBG FGAF|GB (3def gdBc| de (3dcd (3BAG AB|cBAG FGAF|GBdg fdcA|BGGF G2:| |:Bd|gfef gdBd|(3efe ce dBGc|edce dcBd|(3gba (3gfe d2 ef| gfed cBAG|FGAB cdef|gbge dcBA|BGGF G2:| |:Bc|dBGB AFDC|B,CDE FGAB|cBdB cBAG|(3FEF AB cedc| BGAF GDEC|B,DEF GABc|dfeg fdcA|BGGF G2:| |:Bd|(3gfg dg (3efe ce|dedc BGAB|cBcA dcBd|(3gba (3gfe d2 ef| (3gab af gedB|(3cde dB cBAB|dfeg fdcA|BGGF G2:||
CAROLINE O'NEILL'S HORNPIPE (Crannciuil Caroline Ni Niall). AKA and see "Galway Hornpipe (2) (The)." Irish, Hornpipe. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABBCCDD. The hornpipe was composed by Chicago fiddler Edward Cronin, originally from County Tipperary and born in the early 1840's, in honor of one of Chief Francis O'Neill's daughters. Caroline was born in 1881, and, in 1913, married Daniel Crowe. She died in 1968, having outlived her husband by twenty-six years.
Cronin, a member of the Chicago Irish Music Club, was an elderly fiddler of remarkable skill and a vast store of tunes, whom O'Neill visited often to transcribe melodies from his playing. Thus Cronin's name is often mentioned as the source for tunes in the O'Neill collections. Unfortunately, Cronin could also be suspicious, and boasted he 'never forgot nor forgave a slight'. In later years O'Neill became the target of a perceived slight, and the relationship ended. However, O'Neill apparently valued this composition, as it appears in several of his printed collections. O'Neill remarks in his Irish Folk Music: A Fascinating Hobby (1910, p. 120):
After Ed Cronin had been aroused from the lethargy into which his isloation in Lake View had plunged him, he began to indulge in original composition and adaptation, with unexampled assiduity....As specimens of latent talent born of his brain after the day's weary and monotonous toil in a machine shop, we invite attention to "The Bantry Hornpipe" and "Caroline O'Neill's Hornpipe," with four strains in each.
