Also known as Mervent-10 By Mervent, The Trip To Skye.
There are 15 recordings of this tune.
This tune has been recorded together with The Curlews (a few times).
Trip To Skye has been added to 176 tunebooks.
Skolvan has a great version of this tune.
I figured out why this tune haunted me - it sounds so much like Mr. O’Connor. I found the abc of this tune on the Traditional Music Database. It needs some modification.
I have a recording of John Whelan and Eileen Ivers playing this tune in a set with a reel following it, and on that recording the chords are mainly Am and G. I believe that this is in A dorian instead of C Major. It is a haunting tune, and really lends itself to being followed by a reel (maybe in A dorian as well). Thanks for posting this!
I think it needs to be mentioned that this tune was written by John Whelan.
Skye is a small island off the northwest coast of Scotland, the ancestral home of the Nichol / MacNichol / Nicholson clan until the 14th or 15th century, when the island passed by marriage into the Lewis clan.
This may be nitpicking, but this tune is actually in A minor, rather than C Major.
I only offer this because I’d passed over this tune while searching for it several times because of the stated key signature.
If John Whelan wrote this tune then the original key might be B minor, because that’s the key in which he recorded it.
John Whelan composed this tune after visiting Phil Cunningham’s home on Skye in 1985.
@susansharpongs just crushes it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SZue1x1-PA
