The Murroe polka

The Kerry polka is often incorrectly called Peg Ryans, this one is the real Peg Ryans, but is also called The Murroe Polka.
Murroe is a picturesque country wooded area east of Limerick City better known prabably as being the location of Glenstal Abbey.

There is no ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ in these realms. A number of tunes have been ascribed to Peg Ryan and in the absence of a name, she not always having one, sometimes folks just took the easy route. Now, hopefully that won’t turn into a chicken or the egg discussion… They tend to arrive us as ‘gan ainms’ first, or in most cases… There are those nut cases who start with a title first - in search of a tune… Each to his own point of inspiration…

I added "Phil’s Polka" as an alternate name. We learned this tune from Phil Duffy, an excellent box player from Cavan, who didn’t know what it was called. It was released as part of a set on our CD "Live at the PAC".

This is the first proper tune I learned on the Accordian.

My late partner came from Murroe and she knew Peg Ryan, who was a local fiddle player. This might help explain the two names for the tune.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvaFAb3Ikf8

play video

From the playing of Bobbi Nikles & company.

This is also known as Mrs O’Dwyer’s, and as Slugs and Snails, according to https://musescore.com/heartekst/traditional-music-mrs-odwyers.

Additional note: played as Mrs O’Dwyer’s by the Old Swan Band, along with Packie Russell’s. A version rendered in the English style on nyckelharpa at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bs-o0VU3PgM.

play video