Aherne’s Egg jig

This is the middle tune of track 5 on Liz and Yvonne Kane’s outstandingly good album ‘Under the Diamond’. I was at one of their CD launches last autumn (Ennis Festival) and they are just as delicious to listen to, playing live. I misheard them announce this tune as ‘A Heron’s Egg’, which sounds just as plausible as ‘Aherne’s’… The sleeve notes tell how it’s written by Finbar Dwyer (- I’ve already submitted two reels under the name Finbar Dwyer’s which are both lovely tunes).

This tune is a bit challenging with it’s accidentals but is not as difficult to play as it looks, in an unfamiliar key. In the ABCs I’ve said it’s in E major, but if some technical anorak can enlighten me as to what ‘mode’ it might be in, then that would be of academic interest, and would further my knowledge!

Pete, if you call it Emix you only have to put a natural on the first G in the 7th bar and a sharp on the second one of the same bar. Does this mean I’m an "anorak" now?

Pity we didn’t meet up in Ennis.

I posted a version of this in Dmix some time ago, and wished later I’d been able to post in Emix, since at the time that was unavailable. I’m glad to have this info on the original name/composer/key etc. Jeremy, if you’re to delete one, pls delete mine, not Pete’s! https://thesession.org/tunes/1373

Karen Tweed’s setting has some interesting variations in the A-part - the general gist of which is below:

X: 1
T: Aherne’s Egg
T: Tommy Maguire’s
M: 6/8
L: 1/8
R: jig
S: Karen Tweed
K: Emix
B|GEB EDB,|DEF EGB|~e3 geB|{f}edB AFA|
Bec- cde|cAB GEF|=GDB, ^G/A/BG|AFB E2B|
EBE {B}EDB,|DEF EGB|~e3 geB|f/e/dB AFA|
Bec d2e|cAB GEF|=GDB, ^G/A/BG|AFB E2z||
|:ege d2B|cAE AFD|B,EG ~A3|FBF ABc|
BGB ~e2c|dAF DFA|G/A/BG AFB|1 EBE {B}EGB:|2 EBE {B}E2||

Thanks, Jack, useful knowledge about the mode this tune is in. Looking through your various discussion contributions, I had you down as an anorak long ago!

Uh… thanks… I think.

Amongst the zillion tunes I heard in Ennis at the trad fest, this is one of the few ones I made a point of obtaining the name of: It was referred to as Heron´s egg, and I started discussing birds with the one playing it to make sure I got it right and to make sure it would stick in memory.

When I started searching tunes on the web I came nowhere except in the comment section of this tune.
Is the title of this tune evolving into Heron´s egg??

No, FiddleTramp.
You probably were misled by local pronunciation and your bird discussion probably both baffled and amused the company.🙂

There is a great tale to tell about this tune. Eddie Kelly, the legendary fiddler and composer from East Galway, told me this tale about 4years ago. He and Finbarr were great mates. Finbarr had composed the 1st part of Ahern’s Egg but was struggling to get the second part before he headed off to America. He left it in Eddie’s capable hands to come up with a second part which Eddie duly did. When Finbarr returned he added the second part which everyone is aware of. I prefer Kelly’s second part although myself and Joe Fitzgerald (box player in Melbourne) play them both together to make a 3 part tune. I’ll add Kelly’s second part when I get a minute..life is tough with 4 young kids!

There’s a transcription of this tune as "Eddie Kelly’s" in the end of the Holohan paper of Paddy Fahey’s works. It has the 2nd half referred to by jodyphysio above.

Here’s the above mentioned version with Eddie Kelly’s second part. "Eddie Kelly’s jig" from Holohan’s thesis, page 297.

version in D mix

This setting is what I hear Edel Fox playing on
The Sunny Banks (with Neil Byrne)
https://thesession.org/recordings/4425
It differs only in a few notes here and there from the X:1 setting,
most notably in the second bar of the B part.

I came to this page after playing John Brady’s jig McIntyre’s Fancy
https://thesession.org/tunes/819
and noticing that if Brady’s jig was moved down to Edor, but then
changed to Emix by sharping the G’s, then the first two bars are nearly
identical with Ahearne’s Egg (after that the two jigs are only somewhat similar).
The notes on McIntyre’s Fancy say that it was composed in summer of 1983.
I wonder how that compares with the date that Finbarr composed Ahearne’s Egg.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=126&v=rWqvBCt90h0&feature=emb_logo

play video

Playing along with this at half speed, I realized that I actually had
the second bar of the B part wrong, and Edel was indeed playing it just as in
X:1 setting, after all. So, after I edited, the setting I have differs from X:1 in only
two notes! (An F# in bar four is now a G#, and a B in bar three of the B-part is now G#).
So, setting X:5 could be deleted, since it is so similar to X:1.

For reference, just noticed another jig that’s got an identical A part:

https://thesession.org/tunes/9739

The B part is different enough that I suppose it’s a different tune, but they obviously share a common heritage because that A part is distinctive enough to (IMO) not be possible by independent creation.