The Stack Of Barley barndance

A barndance version of the universally known hornpipe, played with the Flowers of Edinborough on John and Brian McGrath’s Cat That Ate The Candle record: https://thesession.org/recordings/652 I changed the title there to point at this tune, which deserves its own entry, it’s quite different from the usual Barley Stack. This is a banjo setting, no doubt there’s something less busy underneath it all. I’ve been playing the banjo an awful lot the last few years, hence the plethora of triplets. John never plays much of anything the same twice on the record too so this is all a bit arbitrary. He’ll be coming to town in the fall with that Burke fellow, what’s his name, fiddler…Kyle, Kieran, something like that. Fiddles, feh. ;) Anyway I’ll ask John if he knows the provenance of this nice setting, did it come from some other musicianer, or did he just make it up himself? The liner notes don’t say.

The same set was played by Macalla and the source was member Pearl O’Shaughnessy, who says she got them from a Kilfenora Ceili Band recording. Described as schottisches.

Jim