Pat Ward’s slide

Source: Sean Kane, Matt Molloy, Liam O’Flinn : “The Fire Aflame”
Transcription: g.m.p.

Probably this tune is a single jig , not a slide.
I know ( and i prefer ) it also as a reel, under the name “A Galway Reel”.

In reeltime aka ‘Doon reel’

As posted here, it sounds like a fling to me.

Submitted on May 25th 2006 by ceolachan.
https://thesession.org/tunes/5796

Alright, alright, you got my attention, wouldn’t you know it… For want of another name, and to avoid just another ‘gan ainm’, I’ve given it the same title.

It is fun either way, but the rhythm within a bar has a pronounced ‘2’ about it, rather than that sort of slithery slide thing of going from beat 1 to beat four, in other words, taking bar 1 first, the feel is:

| FED A2 D | B2 D A2 D | = | F>DA>D B>DA>D |

As is true for the opening bar for the B-part:

| A2 d f2 d e2 d f2 d | = | A>df>d e>df>d |

You will also find in the ‘Comments’ for the above link a single reel take on this melody as well…

Also known as Doon, Leather Buttons.
Submitted on December 17th 2001 by Josh Kane.
https://thesession.org/tunes/438

In the liner notes of his CD “Far from the Hills of Donegal” Oisin McAuley (Danu’s Fiddler) calls this a single jig.

X: 1
T: The Highlander’s Kneebuckle
S: Tunes of the Munster Pipers
M: 2/4
L: 1/16
R: Fling or Reel
K: Dmaj
|: FDAD BDAG | FDAF E2EF | FDAD BDAF |1 Adce dBAG :| 2 Adce d2d2 ||:
d2fd edfd | d2fd B2B2 | d2fd edef | gfed BdAB |
d2fd edfd | d2fd B2B2 | gfed dcBA | BdcedBAG ||

Covering all grounds, great man Nico. 😉

A great tune that should be in everyone’s tunebook. This appears as ‘Pat Ward’s Jig’ on the Seamus Ennis LP The Pure Drop, listed above as part of the ‘Best of Irish Piping’ set. Seamus’s sleeve notes read as follows :
“As a child, I remember Pat Ward. He was a native of Drogheda, an old man with a crescent shaped beard. He played a double changer - two reeds, two bores and two stop holes for each finger, as compared to the usual single piece. I would compare his tone with that of a very mellow concertina, to the best of my recollection, for I was but a child when he was tragically killed by a motor-bus near his house. My father learned this tune from him and as he had no name for it we referred to it as above at all times.
Notice that the accepted performing rhythm of the single jig is nearly identical with that of a hornpipe - a ‘common’ tune simulated by the four threes of 12/8.”

As a reel, #1543, under the title ‘Leather Buttons’

This is pretty close to the Ennis version if memory serves - I modified the final bars a little though.