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Sweet Biddy Of Ballyvourney reel

Also known as Cailini Deasa Mhuigheo, Ceol Na Ceartan, Ceol Na GCeartan, The Forge Music, Sweet Biddy Of Baile Bhúirne, Sweet Biddy Of Baile Mhuirne.

There are 8 recordings of this tune.

Sweet Biddy Of Ballyvourney appears in 4 other tune collections.

Sweet Biddy Of Ballyvourney has been added to 3 tune sets.

Sweet Biddy Of Ballyvourney has been added to 47 tunebooks.

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Two settings

1
X: 1
T: Sweet Biddy Of Ballyvourney
R: reel
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
K: Gmaj
G2BG Bdde | fdge fdcA | G2BG Bdde | fdcA AGG2 :||
~g2dg ~g2ag | fdde fgaf | ~g2dg ~g2ag | fdcA AGG2 |
~g2dg ~g2ag | fgag fdef | defg abag | fdcA AGG2 ||
"Variation" G2BG Bdde | fdge fdcA | G2BG Bdde | fdcA AGGE |
DGBG Bdde | fdge fdcA | G2BG Bdde | fdcA AGG2 ||
~g2dg ~g2ag | fdde fgaf | ~g2dg gbag | fdcA AGG2 |
gd (3Bcd gd (3Bcd | fgag fdef | defg abag | fdcA AGG2 ||
2
X: 2
T: Sweet Biddy Of Ballyvourney
R: reel
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
K: Gmaj
G2BG Bdde|fdge fdcA|G2BG Bdde|1 fdcA FGAF:|2 fdcA AGG2||
g2dg gfde|fdge fdcA|g2dg gfde|fdcA AGG2|
dg~g2 gfde|~f3g fdcA|dg~g2 bgag|fdcA FGAF||

Eight comments

Ceol na gCeartan (The Forge Music)

This neat tune appears on two great flute and fiddle duet albums released last year: Maeve Donnelly and Peadar O’Loughlin "The Thing Itself," and Catherine McEvoy and John McEvoy "The Kilmore Fancy." As Pat Mitchell points out in the sleeve notes of "The Thing Itself," it’s a variant of "The Pretty Girls of Mayo": https://thesession.org/tunes/1954 M. Donnelly and P. O’Loughlin plays Willie Clancy’s setting, which goes like this:

K: Gmaj
G2BG Bdde|fdge fdcA|G2BG Bdde|1 fdcA FGAF:|2 fdcA AGG2||
g2dg gfde|fdge fdcA|g2dg gfde|fdcA AGG2|
dg~g2 gfde|~f3g fdcA|dg~g2 bgag|fdcA FGAF||

McEvoy version is in between Clancy version and the one already posted.

Same tune

This seems to bs the same tune as #1954 Pretty Girls of Mayo.

Posted by .

It’s actually not exactly the same as the common version of Pretty Girls of Mayo, just a variant of it as I have informed above.

Sweet Biddy of Ballyvourney

A blistering version of this tune is also to be found on the Seamus Creagh and Jackie Daly album

Apologies for being 11 years late with my comments. My setting (#1) comes from that very blistering version on the Daly & Creagh album.

It is obviously very close to The Pretty Girls of Mayo (although I probably wasn’t aware of that 11 years ago). It’s close enough that, if you were to start it off in a session, it would probably very quickly turn into the latter, but not close enough that you could get away with playing the two tunes simultaneously.

Re: Sweet Biddy Of Ballyvourney

Appears in O’Neill’s Dance Music of Ireland, no.566, publishers in 1907. This was played frequently by uilleann pipers in the early 1900. It was recorded on 78’s by Liam Walsh and Leo Rowsome. Also it was frequently played by Tommy Kearney. Only the first part is similar to the Pretty Girls of Mayo.

It would be interesting to see which came first. Any suggestions?

Re: Sweet Biddy Of Ballyvourney

From Ballyvourney to Ballymote in two steps;
The first part of this reel -in G ionian- is roughly the same as The Famous Ballymote’s first part -in D mixolydian-
https://thesession.org/tunes/390