Charles O’Connor jig

Very pretty O’Carolan tune. As played on “Frankie Gavin and Alec Finn”. I think it sounds nice at jig tempo followed by Tobin’s.

Here’s a version I picked up in a session:

X: 1
T: Charles O’Connor
M: 6/8
L: 1/8
R: jig
K: Dmaj
A|d3 d2A|BAG FGA|Bcd ecA|dfa a2g|
faf Bcd|ege ABc|dcB AFA|d3 D2:|
|:B|ABA FGA|BGB AFA|D2A FDA|GEe c2A|
faf faf|faf fdB|efe efe|efe ecA|
dcB AFA|FGA f2e|dcB AFA|d3 D2:|

Just added the version that Arty McGlynn plays of this tune although I transposed it up into Dmaj from his setting of Gmaj. Only coz I like it in this key rather than in G. Very nice tune this one. First heard it in the late 1980’s on an LP late one dark night in Scarrif and remembered a few fragments, then my friend Ado Barker played it at a session last night which inspired me to get Arty’s version down. Hadn’t heard it for ages. There you go.

“Frankie Gavin and Alec Finn,” from 1977.
None of the transcriptions capture the tune as well beautifully as Frankie played it on the eponymous LP that I’ve had forever, signed by Frankie and given to an old girlfriend who brought it with her to my house as her dowry and left it with me when she left for other climes. It took me a while, but here it is, as they played it then, absent triplets and ornaments.

This is a transcription from the John Mulholland “Collection of Ancient Irish Airs, Adapted for the Harp, Violin, Flute, and Pipes,” published in 1810 and compiled by the author and his father beginning ca. 1720. This setting may therefore be the closest to O’Carolan’s own to be found in any legacy collection.