Bantry Bay hornpipe

This is an old version by Martin Byrnes.

This is the tune played at the end of the song Martinmas Time on the Paul Brady/Andy Irvine album. There is another tune of the same name posted at https://thesession.org/tunes/785 but I know this one simply as The Stack of Wheat.

Bantry Bay: https://thesession.org/tunes/1061

Sorry about that, I spotted it afterwards. It’s called Little “Stacks” of Wheat on the Bantry Bay posting.

The high B in the 5th bar of the A part has been corrected on the ABC notation but still shows up on the sheet music.

Coleman recorded this as the second of three hornpipes on one of his 78 discs. The first tune was “The Stack of Barley” and the third was the real “Stack of Wheat.” The record label didn’t include all the names, which helped confuse things. The Flanagan Brothers used the title “An Carrowath” for Coleman’s “Stack of Wheat,” but that’s a different tune.

Where else is this HP referred to as Stack(s) of Wheat? Besides this site?

That’s a plain mistake, I believe.

Key signature: G Major
Submitted on August 30th 2006 by cferrie.
https://thesession.org/tunes/6145

It seems to have started here, with a duplication… Maybe someone should ask cferrie where he sourced the name? 😏

He tells you in the comments.

No Mark, glad to see you are awake and functioning, but he doesn’t. He says he transcribed it from this album:

Andy Irvine / Paul Brady
https://thesession.org/recordings/421
track 10: “Martinmas Time”

But ~ that ’he knew it by the name “The Little Stack of Wheat”…

Common yuh crip, put up your dukes! 😎

I was just about to drop you a line, after a night’s struggle with security software gum-ups. That’s another long running moan… 😏

Right. So he got the title off the Andy Irvine & Paul Brady album, no?

Track 10: Martinmas Time / The Little Stack Of Wheat

Yes, nit picky aren’t we both today ~ he gives the title used as from the recording but adds ~ “but I know this one simply as The Stack of Wheat.” So, he had prior knowledge of a name of this order before he heard the album and added the transcription…

As said, best ask, so I’ll drop cferrie a line and see what comes of it… 😏

What is the earliest recording and/or transcription of this particular hornpipe melody and under what name?? 😉

The Fiddler’s Companion ~
http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/BAN_BARM.htm

Collector and compiler Captain Francis O’Neill was quite taken by the tune, calling it “one of the most delightful traditional hornpipes in existence.” ~ O’Neill learned the tune from an accomplished West Clare flute player (and Chicago police patrolman) named Patrick “Big Pat” O’Mahony, a man of prodigious physique of whom he said: “the ‘swing’ of his execution was perfect, but instead of ‘beating time’ with his foot on the floor like most musicians he was never so much at ease as when seated in a chair tilted back against a wall, while both feet swung rhythmically like a double pendulum” [O’Neill, Irish Folk Music].

‘c’, you’ve misinterpreted what he said, I think, when he said “this one”. He was referring to a completely different tune on the database https://thesession.org/tunes/785.

I know you really really want me to be wrong, but you must know by now I’m always right and there’s no point in arguing with me 😉

I know https://thesession.org/tunes/785 as “The Stack of Wheat” - I learnt it donkey’s years ago in Galway…

…and I know https://thesession.org/tunes/6145 as “The Little Stack of Wheat” which I learnt from the Paul Brady/Andy Irvine Album. When I posted this tune I thought I had done a thorough search to check for duplication only to discover later that it was already posted as “Bantry Bay” and there was an alternative title of “The Little Stacks of Wheat” - I don’t know where this alternative title came from but it had nothing to do with me 🙂

Thanks cferrie, now we have your word and explanation on it I can rest in peace and stop poking Dow in the ribs… 😉

Yes, with regards to tune #785, “The Stack of Wheat”, you were right Dow. I know I was confusing, what’s new, eh? What I was really wanting to know is now cleared, whether or not the Brady/Irvine recording was cferrie’s sole source for his notation and the name he’d given this melody. I was curious to know if he had another association with it. Now I know that it may be only Paul Brady and Andy Irvine who may be responsible for attaching this name to this melody… 😏

Brian Rooney accompanied by Brian Mc Brath plays a set of The Stack of Barley together with Little Stack of Wheat:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeptXwr4_eo

play video

Rooney adds a little extra in his version..

I live about 15 miles from Bantry and learned this as “The Little Stack of Wheat” many, many (40+) years ago !
The lads around here use both names.

Fully dinxterized for swing ~ >

X: 2
T: Bantry Bay
B: “O’Neill’s Music Of Ireland”, 1903, page 292, tune #1573
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: hornpipe
K: Gmaj
|: d>c |\
B>GA>G E>GD>E | G2 G>G G3 B | A>GA>B c>BA>G | B>dd>e d3 d |
e>de>f g>ag>e | d>ed>B A2 G>A | B>GA>G E>GD>E | G2 G>G G2 :|
|: B>c |\
d>BG>B d>BG>B | e2 e>d e2 d>e | f2 f>e d>ef>d | g2 g>f g2 z2 |
d2 e>f g>ag>e | d>ed>B A2 G>A | B>GA>G E>GD>E | G2 G>G G2 :|

http://www.oldmusicproject.com/
http://www.oldmusicproject.com/oneils1.html

X: 3
T: Bantry Bay
B: “Allen’s Irish Fiddler”, page 27, tune #108
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: hornpipe
K: Gmaj
|: G>A |\
B>GA>G A>F (3DEF | G2 G>F G2 A>G | E>AA>B c>BA>G | (3ABA G>B A2 A>B |
c>ec>A B>dB>G | A>BA>G E2 D2 | B>AB>G A>F (3DEF | G2 G>F G2 :|
|: B>c |\
d>BG>B d>BG>B | e2 e2 d2- e2 d>f | g2 e>d B>GB>d | (3gag f>a g2 e>f |
g>ag>f e>fe>d | B>AG>B A>F D2 | B>AB>G A>F (3DEF | G2 G>F G2 :|

http://www.oldmusicproject.com/
http://www.oldmusicproject.com/allans.html

My version of this lovely hornpipe.

I learned it as a song we called the Sean Bhean Bhocht, with the lyrics:

O the French are on the sea (pronounced say), says the Sean Bhean Bhocht,
The French are on the say, says the Sean Bhean Bhocht,
The French are on the say; they’ll be here without delay
And the Orange will decay, says the Sean Bhean Bhocht.

Taken from ‘A Fine Selection of Over 200 Irish Traditional Tunes for Sessions’, compiled by David Speers with a Forward by Matt Cranitch. This version collected with the title The Little Stack of Wheat.

This is THE LITTLE STACK OF WHEAT as played by Andy Irvine and Paul Brady after the song Martinmas on their cd . It is also on a fiddle tutorial video by Ross Cameron . It can also be heard played with Charlestown hornpipe by Cuchulann. All 3 are on youtube.

My transcription at X:8 is a close approximation of the playing of Michael Coleman as recorded in 1934 (Decca 12036 A, 28:11:1934), representing some of the variations he uses in his two iterations of the tune.

The Session rendering of my ABCs has made a bit of a hash of the alternative lines etc. (I’ll try to tidy up a bit…) so please avail yourselves of copies of my notation document which can be downloaded from: https://app.box.com/s/tzsl2xznpwhr25dhdl0j2knvjivqekai

See also https://tunearch.org/wiki/Bantry_Bay_Hornpipe_(1) for more background info, including the earliest source for a setting of the tune - from Cumbria, England.

X:1
T:Bantry Bay Hornpipe
T: [aka James McKenney’s Hornpipe, The Union, and (by mistake) The Little Stack of Wheat]
C:Traditional
O:England, Ireland
D:Michael Coleman (Decca 12036 A, 28:11:1934) https://youtu.be/8S07WMKxH5A

play video

S:https://tunearch.org/wiki/Bantry_Bay_Hornpipe_(1) & https://thesession.org/tunes/1061
N:After the playing of Michael Coleman
Z:Jem Hammond 2:9:2021
R:Hornpipe
M:4/4
L:1/8
K:G
[P:A]D/G/A[|:BABG E2 D/E/F|G2 GF G2 AG|“*“EAAB cBA^G & E2 x6|A/B/A ^GB A2 AB|
c4 B4 & cece BdBd|ABAG EG D>c|BABG AF D/E/F|G2 GF G3 “@-18,19 2nd”G & GDB,D [D3G,3] “@-22,-23 1st”D:|]
[P:B]|:d2 eB dBGB|e2 e2 e3f|g2 ed BGBd|g/a/g x6 & eg fa g2 ef|
gbgf efed|BABG EG D>c|BABG AF D/E/F|G2 GF G3x/ “@-14,14 1st”[BG] & (3GFE (3DB,A, [D3G,3]x/ “@-25,-23 2nd”D:|]
[P:* A - alternative bars 3 & 4]E2 AB cBA”(=)“G|EAA”(=)“G A2 AB|X8 X8 X8 X8 X8
W:N.B. Double stemmed or headed notes and parallel melodic lines are intended as alternatives
W:to be chosen between as appropriate, not as harmonies, chords or double stops.