The Geevagh jig

I was surprised not to find this one here (maybe I’ve missed something). I’ve posed a basic version on the abc but I would have had it from Catherine McEvoy’s playing on ‘The Home Ruler’ CD, where she has several lovely variations on it, roughly as follows:

X: 1
T: Geevagh, The
M: 6/8
L: 1/8
R: jig
K: Edor
S: Catherine McEvoy (The Home Ruler)
Bd||ege dBA|AGE GED|~G3 GAB|deB dBd|
e2e dBA|~A3 GED|G2B dBd|AFD Ggg|
e2e dBA|AGE GED|GBd GAB|deB dBd|
ege d2A|AGE GED|GAB d2d|AFD G2z||
GB{c}d gB{c}d|fB{c}d edB|G2d efg|~f3 edB|
GBd ~g3|f2f edB|GAB dBd|AFD G2z:||
GBd gbg|f2f edB|GBd efg|f{g}af edB|
GBd ~g3|f2f edB|GAB dBd|AFD G2z:||

I believe it’s in the ‘Mountain Top’ book of session tunes common in South Sligo but I don’t have a copy.

I did try to call this ‘The Geevagh jig’ (to differentiate) but the word jig gets eaten by gremlins somewhere.

Carmel is a Sligo whistle player and singer and has taught June McCormack, Liam Kelly of Dervish, and Damien Stenson of Teada. Geevagh is the name of the town where Carmel is from.

Carmel herself recorded this tune with much more variations than Catherine McEvoy.

Nice, but take out the C# in the key signature and call it in G. Unless there’s something going on in the backing that’s not obvious here…

The Geevagh as it is called here is correctly known as The Geevagh Jig. I composed it around 10 years ago and recorded it on my CD The Sligo Maid. This is the version that is the original version which I would like people to stick to when they are playing it but unfortunately some musicians have a habit of changing parts of the phrasing from the original which Im not happy with and as far as I am concerned I pitched the tune in the key of G. Hope that answers your comment Lightsong. Signed Carmel Gunning Sligo.

I’m sure lots of composers are unhappy with people changing bits of their tunes, but hey, that’s what you get with an aural tradition.