My Maryanne reel

It’s easy to guess errik learned this nice tune from Solas’ second. I just noticed it’s also on Harry Bradley’s “As I carelessly did stray…,” which is my currently favourite recording.

Yeah, that is where I learned it. I haven’t heard it anywhere else.

As far as I remember the line up was Brendan McComiskey on button -box,Brendan Mulvihill on fiddle and I forget the guitar player.They were all from Boston or Chicago I think.I`ll dig the recording out of the archive and list it here.I`m sure some of the artists who have recorded it recently got it from that very lump of vinyl.It makes me wonder why people learn tunes off old recordings,stick them on their own albums and give no credit to the source-not always the case but very common in trad circles.

Laura Risk plays a version of this tune on her CD “The Merry-Making”

That would be *Billy* McComiskey who along with Brendan Mulvihill and singer/guitar Andy O‘Brien comprised the group The Irish Tradition in the 1970s/80s. They were not from Boston or Chicago, rather it was from New York City that they all three came down to Washington DC in the mid ’70s to form The Irish Tradition and make their mark as the house band at The Dubliner pub on Capitol Hill. Although they disbanded in the 1980s, their influence is still felt on the Irish trad scene today in the Baltimore/Washington area. All Irish music here today can trace its roots to them. Billy McComiskey, originally from Brooklyn, now lives in Baltimore. Brendan Mulvihill, with roots in Limerick and Birmingham (England) now lives just outside Washington DC. Both can be seen and heard often around these parts. Andy O’Brien, originally from Kerry if I’m not mistaken, now lives somewhere around Baltimore. Although he’s not seen out as often as Brendan and Billy, he’s still around and surfaces occasionally, always in fine voice.

As for the tune My Maryann, I believe Billy credits East Galway/Bronx flute player Jack Coen for digging it out of O’Neill’s and putting it into circulation.

It’s also on Micheal O Raghallaigh’s ‘The Nervous Man’, - in a funny key, as he plays it on a G#/C# concertina.

East Galway flute player Sean Moloney recorded a slightly different version of the tune in D as “The Sailor on the Rock.” In fact, the first part of his version is almost identical to that of the well-known reel.

Now I’m convinced that this tune is related to “The Sailor on the Rock.” Harry Bradley’s version of “Maryanne” in the key of D is very similar to the East Galway version of “the Sailor”: https://thesession.org/tunes/765#comment166939

O‘Neill collected this twice, once from McFadden (very similar to the above) and once from Early - this latter was also written in C, but had a low C that no piper could play. My hypothesis is that James O’Neill wrote it down as he heard it from a flat pitched set of pipes from Early, and possibly McFadden was also simply tuned down. There are wax cylinder recordings of Early playing flat-pitched pipes, likely a C set, as at least one of the cylinders is right in tune with my C chanter (wax cylinders being what they are, it’s impossible to determine the pitch without having the pipes in hand, though).

Early’s setting was called the Boys of Galway, hence adding the title (at some point I’ll add the version and the key-corrected version I recorded).

Funnily enough, this was one of the first tunes I ever learned (say, during my first year) when my album collection was limited (and Internet wasn’t really around). And I had it on TWO albums bought during the same period - Irish Tradition “Corner House” and Touchstone “New Land”. Those were the days (see also: https://thesession.org/discussions/41308#comment829082 )

Here’s Early’s “Boys of Galway” setting #596 in O’Neill’s, as noted above by Nico.