Nóra Críona jig

Source: Mary Bergin : "Fead

I came across this tune on Galway flute master Sean Moloney’s recent solo album. I think it’s identical to what Paul McGrattan and Paul O’Shaughnessy recorded as the jig version of Colliers Reel.

Sorry, slainte - I just don’t see any similarity betwen “Nora Crionna” and “The Collier’s Jig”, posted on this website under it’s alternative title of “Do You Want Anymore?”. To my ears , they are two distinct tunes. Am I missing something? Maybe the 2 Pauls got the name wrong. What does Sean Moloney call it?

Sorry, I confused two different tracks of the recording. This is actually what those two Pauls recorded as Lilliburlero Jig. It seems they don’t have the correct name for it. Sean Moloney has it through Galway piper Emmet Gill.

Sorry for too much pedagogic comments above. If this were a jig version of Colliers Reel, my information would be very useful. But actually it was a mistake.

|:G3 G2A | BAG d2B | G3 GAB | A2B cBA |
G3 G2A | BAG dcB | AFA fef | A2B cBA :|
|: ddd dcB | BAG d2B | ddd dcB | A2B c3 |
ded dcB | BAG ABc | d^cd fef | A2B cBA :|
|: BGG G3 | BGG G3 | AFF cFF | AFF cFF |
BGG dGG | BAG ABc | d^cd fef | A2B cBA |
| BGG dGG | BGG dGG | AFF cFF | AFF cFF |
BGG dGG | BAG ABc | d^cd fef | A2B cBA ||
|: GB/c/d GB/c/d | GB/c/d dBG | GB/c/d GB/c/d | A2B cBA |
GB/c/d GB/c/d | GB/c/d dBG | GB/c/d f3 | A2B cBA |
GB/c/d gB/c/d | GB/c/d gdB | GB/c/d gdB | A2B cBA |
GB/c/d fB/c/d | gB/c/d g2a | b2g agf | A2B cBA ||
|: GBd g3 | g3 gdB | GBd gf/e/d | edB cBA |
GBd g3 | gba g2a | b2g agf | A2B cBA :|
|: dBG GDG | BGB d2B | dBG GFG | AAA cBA |
dBG GDG | BGB dcB | AFA fef | A2B bBA |
dBG GDG | BGB d2B | dBG GFG | AAA cBA |
BDD cDD | dDD cDD | d^cd fef | A2B cBA ||

there’s a nice version from Planxty on YouTube here (following on after the Clare Jig)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP-UX6GGlGc

play video

Is this the first tune in the set titled Lesbia Hath a Beaming Eye on Conal O’Grada’s new album Cnoc Bui? He does an amazing job with it!

This version of Nora Criona is pretty much as Willie Clancy played it (he also had set dance and piece versions). Lesbia.. is an extended version of the tune which is, under that title, in O’Neill’s MOI

It’s the second tune here by Liam O’Flynn and Paddy Glackin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3hm7tFbTNI&feature=rec-HM-fresh+div

play video

I know this as The Metal Bridge.
I was in fact looking for the Nora Críona as played for inst. by Maeve Donnelly. That’s the version (a kind of air) Willie Clancy used to play in the back room in Friel’s.

Yeah, this tune shows up under the title ‘Metal Bridge’ in the Bulmer and Sharpley “Music of Ireland” series (book 3, tune 46). But the title Metal Bridge also applies to another jig, Boys of the Town:
https://thesession.org/tunes/1264

“Music From Ireland, Volume Three”
Dave Bulmer & Neal Sharpley, 1976
ISBN: 0-9503784-4-5


X: 3
T: Metal Bridge, The
B: “Music From Ireland, Volume Three”, Bulmer & Sharpley, page 16, tune #46
M: 6/8
L: 1/8
R: jig
K: GMaj
|: GFG BAG | A2 B cBA | B2 d gdB | AGA cBA |
GFG BAG | A2 B cBA | f/g/af gdB | AGA cBA :|
|: B2 d gdB | dGB dgd | B2 d gdB | AGA cBA |
B2 d gdB | dGB def | gfe dcB | AGA cBA :|

This is the title Conal O Grada has on Cnoc Bui (@celticmarine, above). Here’s a link to this song from The Irish Melodies by Thomas Moore in the Villiers Stanford arangement (‘Lesbia Hath A Beaming Eye’, Air: Nora Creina). http://www.libraryireland.com/Irish-Melodies/Lesbia-hath-a-beaming-eye-2.php

“Call the Set III”
Musicians: Pat Sullivan, Vince Milne, & Mick Daly
https://thesession.org/recordings/5713

More or less Willie Clanc version

There is a poem, “Nora Criona” written by the Irish poet and novelist James Stephens (1880-1950), an associate of James Joyce. I present it to you here to provide you with some rich banter for your audiences after (never before!) playing this tune:

Nora Criona
by James Stephens ~ 1910

I have looked him round and looked him through,
Know everything that he will do.

In such a case, and such a case;
And when a frown comes on his face.

I dream of it, and when a smile
I trace its sources in a while.

He cannot do a thing but I
Peep to find the reason why;

For I love him; and I seek,
Every evening in the week;

To peep behind his frowning eye
With little query, little pry,

And make him, if a woman can,
Happier than any man.

—Yesterday he gripped her tight
And cut her throat—and serve her right!

A pleasant jig, but, apart from its being Irish I am not able to give any details about the tune. I put it in key of C major - but another key might fit it better.

It’s here already. Origins unknown - it appears in the Gunn Bagpipe collection of 1848. https://thesession.org/tunes/2009

Nice! G or D might be more common, but C is nice too. Where did you learn it?

This setting could possibly be changed to a setting under the slide version of Nóra Críona (“Norah Creeney,” https://thesession.org/tunes/6648). Definite similarities to the first setting there if it’s transposed down to G and converted to 12/8:

X:1
T:Norma Creina
R:jig
M:6/8
L:1/8
K:Gmaj
D|: G2 G G2 A B2 G d2 B | G2 G G2 B A2 B cBA |
G2 G G2 A B2 G d2 B |A2 e e^de A2 B cBA :|
|: d2 d d2 c B2 c d2 B | d2 d d2 B A2 B cBA |
d2 d d2 c B2 c d2 B | A2 e e^de A2 B cBA :|

I couldn’t find it looking up “Norma” or “Creina”, but looks like it should be a setting of “Nora Criona”. (I jotted it down a while back but can’t remember where I got it from.)

Nora Criona means Wise Nora. Pat Michell plays this tune nicely on his Uilleann Pipes album…

https://youtu.be/saGdo5tGMoo

play video

The air “Nora Criona” as credited to the song “Save Me From The Grave And Wise” in Beethoven’s arrangement of Irish folk songs WoO 154, of tunes collected by George Thomson in the 1810s. The arrangement is in F major and includes a soprano-bass duet and the extended coda on the last ending.

Lyrics by William Smyth (1765-1849):
Save me from the grave and wise,
For vainly would I tax my spirit,
Be the thing that I despise,
And rival all their stupid merit.
On! My careless laughing heart,
O dearest Fancy let my find thee,
Let me but from sorrow part,
And leave this moping behind me.

Refrain
Speak ye wiser than the wise,
Breathe aloud your welcome measure,
Youthful Fancy well can prize
The words that counsel love and pleasure.

Is it merry look, or speech,
Or bounding step that thus displeases?
Go and graver movements teach
To yon light goss’mer on the breezes:
Go where breathes the opening spring,
And chide the flowers for gaily blowing,
Tell the linnet not to sing
In jocund May, when noon is glowing.

(Refrain)

Hence with wisdom, dull and drear,
And welcome folly at a venture:
Cease my song, a sound I hear,
The planxty comes, the dancers enter.
In yon throng, if I should see
Some gallant, giddy, gay adviser,
Who trough life might counsel me,
He indeed might make me wiser.

(Refrain)

Version in Clinton’s Gems of Ireland, no. 81 (as “Nora Creina”).

As played by the Tannahill Weavers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_uCtdMec7Q

play video