The Castle jig

This is one of two jigs I know by this name, apparently the more popular of the two. It lends itself to variations–listen to Martin Hayes on his self titled cd (and in the session unfreindly key of D dorian), Kevin Burke on Promenade, or Laura Risk on Greenfire.

We do this in a set after Rambling Pitchfork and Hole in the Hedge.

Will

I love the jig and the way that it uses such a large range of notes!

I’ve seen this as The Castle, by Sean Ryan.

A friend who used to play with Joe Cooley said Joe would play the 12th bar as an arpeggio starting on the very lowest note of his box, an octave below the lowest note on the fiddle. I’ve a tape of Joe with this tune, it’s quite the thundering sound there.

John Carr, who leads the session up in Ft. Collins that we attend regularly, plays the B repeating the first part the first time through the B and then using the second part of the part as a second ending:

|:cBA afa|bag edB|GBd gfg|GBd cBA|1
cBA afa|bag edB|GBd gdc|BAG A2B:|2
cBc dcd|ede gab|age dBG|EFG A2 B||

This tune was composed by Sean Ryan and he called it ‘The Castle’.

Yep, just like the 3rd post from the top sez….

Will, did you know that this tune is actually called “The Castle”? It’s a composition by Sean Ryan.

🙂

Cape Breton fiddlers call this tune “Gallagher’s Jig.” Don’t ask me why.

Nice echo in here….
😏
🙂

By the way, there is another jig associated with Sean Ryan, which has yet to be posted. It’s on the Tap Room Trio album, and I think I once heard it played by Providence on the radio.

I like to call it, “Sean Ryan’s Castle.” 🙂

The other Sean Ryan Jig is called “The Nightingale”.
https://thesession.org/tunes/1868
Go over there and we can repeat all these comments again.
Did I mention he also wrote the Castle 🙂

Nope. There’s another “Sean Ryan’s Jig.”

This reminds me a lot of a tune I’ve heard called
“The Large Fortified Building or Group of Buildings with Thick Walls.” Don’t know who composed it though.

This is the version Martin Hayes plays on “The Lonesome Touch”. It is close to the original tune posted but he plays it in C Major so it goes “Paddy Fahy’s Jig #1”.

X: 1
T:Sean Ryan’s Jig
R:Jig
M:6/8
L:1/8
K:C
fed edc|dcA GEC| DED AcA|GAc dcA|
fed edc|dcA GEC|DED AcA|1 GEC D3:|2 GEC D2 F||
FED ~d3|edc AGE|CEG cBc|CEG FED|
~F3 ~G3|AGA cde|dcA GEC|1 A,B,C D3:|

Sorry, its not on “The Lonesome Touch”. It’s on his “Martin Hayes” CD.

Have y’all tried this in E dor? It’s great fun and makes the whistle player in your band happy (but drives your fiddlers crazy).

I just found this doing a search for “Paddy Canny”. It’s either played along with pipes or with heavy artifact from click removal. The turns in the B part are done more as sliding up to the note with slow attack. Paddy made those sound almost like a dixieland trumpet with a derby over the bell.

X: 1
T: Sean Ryan’s
M: 6/8
L: 1/8
R: jig
K: Ador
|:cBA BAG|AGE DBG|~A3 EDB|DEG AGE|
c2A B/2c/2dB|AGE DBG|~A2 E EDE|DBG A2 B:|
|:cBA ~a3|bag edB|GBd ~g3|GBd cBA|
cBc dcd|ede gab|age dBG|EFG A2 B:|

“The Hidden Ireland:
The First Selection of Irish Traditional Compositions of Seán Ryan”
Compiled by Brian Ryan

Page 8: “The Castle Jig”

X: 5
T: The Castle Jig
C: Seán Ryan
M: 6/8
L: 1/8
R: jig
K: Ador
|: B |\
c2 A BAG | AGE DBG | A^GA E^DE | DEG AGE |
c2 A B/c/dB | AGE DBE | A^GA E^DE | DBG A2 :|
|: B |\
cBA a^ga | bag edB | GBd gfg | GB/c/d cBA |
c2 c d^cd | e^de gab | age dBG | E>FG A2 :|

thanks, Ceolachan, for that. It explains things I didn’t even know needed explaining. The Paddy Canny track I found was a medley called Paddy Canny’s Castles, altho I had previously only known it as “Sean Ryan’s”, entirely without the sixteenth-notes, which add so much. Those accidentals change the flavor, too. I’ll need to play them a while for the feel of it.

Oh, I missed something in the fourth measure, played as

|DE/F/G AGE|

Just so you know, X: 5, that transcription, isn’t from the book. It’s an alternate take from me offering another choice for those that can’t dip below D… But I picked up that option of playing those accidentals, for example ~ | A^GA E^DE | ~, from playing this tune with others… Here are the same bars from the book, so as to make the distinction, as I’ve given it above first…

A-part
| AGE DBG | A^GA E^DE | - to - | AGE DB,G, | ~A,3 EDB, |

B-part
c2 c d^cd | e^de gab | - to - | cdc d^cd | ede gab |

Incidental accidentals, especially when they don’t lie on the first note of a beat, so the 2nd or 3rd with a jig, don’t pose any real conflct in playing this tune with others. With the bar | A^GA E^DE | the accidental is the second note, just a slight dip below the primary tone of these two beats, or A & E…

I forgot to say, nice transcription justjim, I like it…

Played to perfection by Martin Hayes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9vlmAYw0a8&feature=rec-r2

play video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH3r_rCKYks&feature=rec-fresh+div

play video

Played by Four Men and a Dog, the second tune

And another version, second tune
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is0XNXE2xQg&feature=sub

play video

I used to confuse this with the Cliffs of Mohair: reading the score now, I can see why, it has to do with their 1st parts:
c3 BAG|AGE DB,G,|~A,3 EDB,|DEG AGE| versus
a3 bag| eaf ged | c2A BAG |EFG ABd||
<=>
‘Long’ bag|XXX XXX|‘Long’ XXX|-EG AXX||
They’re both descending with the long notes placed in the same spots and only 2 identical short runs.

The Cliffs of MohEr, moher like! https://thesession.org/tunes/12

As played by Martin Hayes

The Joe Cooley Tape 5 has his lovely setting of the Castle/Sean Ryan’s jig in Em (E dorian?) and it’s called ‘Cooley’s Jig’ on Tony MacMahon’s In Knocknagree album. Here’s a basic transcription:

T: Joe Cooley’s version of The Castle
K: Em
L:1/8
M:6/8
|: f|~g2 e fdd|edB AFB|EFE BAF|ABd edB|
g2 e (4fgaf|edB AFB|EFE B2B|AFD E2 z:|
|: F|GFE ~e3|fed BAF|DFA dcd|DFA DFA|
~G3 ABA|~B3 def|edB AFD|B,CD E2 z :|

Joe actually played all of that an octave lower, as in Emin he could use the lowest pitched button on his box.

X:9 from Seán Ryan’s Hidden Ireland but they left out the beautiful low C# he played in bar 7. Also I can’t believe no one seems to play the beautiful G,B,D arpeggio in bar 12, that’s the best part of the tune.

Not sure where I heard this but couldn’t find it on this site.

https://thesession.org/tunes/273

The A-part is very similar to this one:
https://thesession.org/tunes/3437

As for the Nightingale https://thesession.org/tunes/1868, and as said Zina a long time ago, there is another way to play the second part. Four men and a dog, and De Danann (Selected Jigs and Reels) for the Castle, Kevin Crawford with Martin Hayes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9RqkbmHUtQ for the Nightingale (but not for the castle !), are playing like that. This way allow to keep the interest more longer until the end of the tune, in a kind of conclusion.

play video

A D minor setting taken from ‘A Fine Selection of Over 200 Irish Traditional Tunes for Sessions’, compiled by David Speers with a Forward by Matt Cranitch. In this key it’s a good one to pair with The Lonesome Jig in C major.

Usually whistle players octave jump just the low B’s, A’s, and G’s of this tune in the A Part. Turns out the range of the tune is suitable for the entire part to be octave jumped. Have chosen one of the common B Parts, but any of the other B Parts would be fine.

Here’s one such example. Choosing *not* to use the setting which usually has a high-d in the 5th bar makes this easier. Can play on top of other instruments which can reach the low-notes. For the octave-jumped-c in the beginning of the 5th bar, slide onto this from the high-e.

Related:
https://thesession.org/tunes/17684

Setting from The Teetotalers (John Doyle, Martin Hayes and Kevin Crawford).

Setting from String Theory.

Setting from Legacy.

Setting from GreenMan.

From the playing of Tickle Harbour (they play it in a different key, have transposed it to Ador/Amin). The B Part comes from their second time through - it’s quite a bit different in the first four bars than how the tune normally goes.

Here’s Rowan Piggott playing the Castle jig:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CM4oce9BQHt/

In his tunebook, Irish Fiddle Tunes, he says:
“A composition of Sean Ryan, my dad used to play this on the banjo with De Danann.”

And here’s that De Danann set with Charlie Piggott on banjo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuXMz5GOgjc

play video