back menu
Log in or Sign up

The McDonaghs of Ballinafad and Friends

By Larry And Michael Joe McDonagh

Added by Kenny .

Search for Larry, Michael Joe McDonagh.

  1. Tom Ward’s Downfall
  2. The Mullingar Races
  3. The Ballinafad
  4. Jackie Coleman’s
  5. McFadden’s
    The Blackberry Blossom
  6. The Butcher’s March
  7. The Morning Dew
  8. The Templehouse
  9. Scatter the Mud
  10. The Lady on the Island
  11. Lord McDonald
  12. Richard Brennan’s
  13. Down the Broom
  14. The Wind that Shakes the Barley
  15. The Rambling Pitchfork
  16. Larry McDonagh’s
  17. Ah, Surely
  18. The Boyne Hunt
    Drowsy Maggie
  19. Miss McLeod’s
  20. Saddle The Pony
  21. The Ravelled Hank Of Yarn
  22. The Fermoy Lasses
  23. The Dublin
  24. Brendan Tonra’s
  25. The Boys of Ballisodare
  26. The Ladies’ Pantalettes
  27. Harp Tune
  28. The Copperplate
  29. Coleman’s Cross
  30. The Leitrim
  31. The Heather Breeze
  32. Billy Brocker’s
  33. The Killavil
  34. The Sailor on the Rock
  35. Larry McDonagh’s
  36. The Tinker’s Stick
  37. Martin Wynne’s

Six comments

McDonaghs

This CD was released by Comhaltas a couple of years back. It is from a series of house recordings made in the 1960s. Fiddler Paddy Ryan says in the sleeve notes, “This music gives us a glimpse into the an earlier world of Sligo music which has now disappeared completely”.
There are varying combinations of the McDonaghs along with Tommy Flynn or Paddy Ryan on fiddle, Michael Daly on flute and Tom Harte on bodhran.

Tracks 16 & 35 are both called “Larry McDonagh’s”. The 2nd is a jig, and has been posted by “edl”. I don’t think the reel is in, but will post it soon.

“The McDonaghs of Ballinafad and Friends Play Traditional Music of Sligo”

Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Éireann CL53

Review ~
http://www.mustrad.org.uk/
http://www.mustrad.org.uk/reviews/mcdonagh.htm

"When considering the music of Sligo, one instinctively thinks of the great Irish American musicians of the 1920s. Names like Paddy Killoran, James Morrisson and most famously Michael Coleman spring to mind. Their music, perhaps by reason of the wide availability of their recordings, was to exert a major influence on the Irish music scene for the next few decades and even today, the tunes they recorded form the basis for many a musician’s repertoire. Meanwhile, back home in Sligo, there were other musicians, more or less contemporaries of those who had emigrated to America, keeping alive another type of playing which, while showing the influence of Coleman and the like, retained elements of an older style and a local repertoire. Such musicians were the three McDonagh brothers who lived their whole lives in a cottage on the side of the Curlew Mountains, near to the village of Ballinafad in southern Sligo. It is a beautiful but wild environment and that is somehow reflected in their music.
~
As was usual with the older musicians and in common with RTE’s recent CD issue of Elizabeth Crotty’s music, these are short, single tunes, predominately reels with just a few jigs, a polka and a harp tune played as a ‘piece’. ~ It made even ‘me’ want to get up and dance.
~
~ this is a recording that can safely be recommended to anyone with a love for or an interest in an older style of Irish music. ~"

Roger Johnson - 8.12.00

track 5, first reel (McFadden’s)

the link sends you to the wrong tune (“The Glass of Beer”).
The tune in this recording is “John McFadden’s Favourite” (also known simply as “McFadden’s Reel”)
here the right link:
https://thesession.org/tunes/1466

Re: The McDonaghs Of Ballinafad And Friends

Going through this recording I found that Harper’s tune links to a different version. I found the version on this site (Tunepal) under the title McDonagh’s Air. I changed the link but not the title.