The Boys Of Ballycastle hornpipe

Played with a nice swing by Kevin Burke on “Up Close”.

Isn’t this tune a hornpipe?

I’d agree, Kenny. The tune has that rhythm at the end of the 4-bar phrases that is typical of so many hornpipes.
Trevor

It is a hornpipe I think. I play it with Napoleon Crossing the Rhine. They make a nice set.

This tune is certainly a hornpipe and I have come across a few musicians who called it ‘The Gipsy Hornpipe’,
Good Luck
Mikea

This is called Leggett’s Reel in Kerr’s Merry Melodies. Don’t know why anyone would play it as a reel, though.

Jimmy Shand recorded a very similar (major-key) tune called “The cairdin’ o’t” at reel tempo, which Kevin Burke has also recorded.

Here’s a marginally different take on this (I know it as the Gypsy’s HP) from our session and before that probably from a workshop CD by Angie Bladen and Martin Ellison.
X:1
T:Gypsy Hornpipe
M:4/4
R:Hornpipe
K:G
L:1/8
d||: g>fe>d e>dB>d | e>d (3efg B2 B>A | G>FG>A B>AB>d | e2 A2 A2 d2 |
g>fe>d e>dB>d | e>d (3efg B2 B>A | G>FG>A B>cB>A |1 G2 E2 E2 d2 :|2 G2 E2 E2 g>f |
||:e2 B2 B2 g>f | e2 B>A B2 g>f | e>de>f g>fg>a | b2 b2 e2 g>a |
(3bag (3agf g2 g>f | e>d (3efg B2 B>A | G>FG>A B>cB>A |1 G2 E2 E2 g>f :|2 G2 E2 E4 ||

I first heard this tune and played it with a mandolin and guitar group whom I play acoustic bass with. We use a written out arrangement by Steve Kaufman.

Laurence

I was recently listening to the “Up Close” CD by Kevin Burke when I noticed how similar this tune was to the one which I know as “Gypsy’s Hornpipe” by Steve Kaufman. I think our first mandolin player found it in a book of tunes arranged for mandolin orchestras by Kaufman.

Laurence

I first saw this tune under the name, The Gipsy’s Hornpipe, in the 1954 book, The Second Fiddler’s Tune-Book 100 Tradional Airs, edited by Peter Kennedy.

The famed fiddler James Scott Skinner (1843-1927) played this under the title “The Shillelah” and published it in his 1903 collection “Harp and Claymore”.

O’Neill ‘collected’ it in his “Waifs and Strays of Gaelic Melody.”

O’Neill got it from a “Pat Dunne manuscript”. Possibly 19th century Wicklow piper Patrick Dunne, owner of a large collection of books and manuscripts which were lost in a fire.

I know this under the ‘Ballycastle’ title from the Kevin Burke recording (though round my way a slightly different setting is played as Gypsy’s/Gipsy’s Hornpipe. As I remember, KB follows it with ‘Little Stack of Barley’ - which generally seems to be notated in G and is quite similar to ‘Ballycastle’. To differentiate it he puts it in A*, which gives it a real lift. A favourite pair of mine. (*http://www.rudemex.co.uk/library/Alphabetical/Little%20Stack%20of%20Barley,%20The%20(A).pdf)

A terrific rendition of this tune (on mandolin, by Gina Le Faux) is on Podcast #14 of The Mike Harding Folk Show. The tune starts at around the 44 minute mark. This hornpipe is then followed by The Old Grey Cat.
https://mikehardingfolkshow.com/podcast-14/