back menu
Log in or Sign up

The Maid Of The House reel

There are 9 recordings of this tune.

The Maid Of The House has been added to 3 tune sets.

The Maid Of The House has been added to 44 tunebooks.

Download ABC

Two settings

1
X: 1
T: The Maid Of The House
R: reel
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
K: Dmaj
AD (3DDD ADFD|DEFA BAGF|EFGA BE (3EEE|EFGA BcdB|
AD (3DDD ADFD|DEFA BAGF|EFGA BABd|1 AGFE D2 dB:|2 AGFE D2 FG||
Ad (3ddd fd (3ddd|Addc BAGF|Ee (3eee ge (3eee|Beed cABc|
d2 dB c2 cA|BcdB AGFD|EFGA BcdB|1 AGFE D2 FG:|2 AGFE D4||
2
X: 2
T: The Maid Of The House
R: reel
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
K: Gmaj
dG (3GGG dGBG|GABd edcB|ABcd eA (3AAA|ABcd efge|
dG (3GGG dGBG|GABd edcB|ABcd efge|1 dcBA G2 ge:|2 dcBA G2 Bc||
dg (3ggg bg (3ggg|dggf edcB|Aa (3aaa abag|eaag fdef|
g2 ge f2 fd|efge dcBG|ABcd efge|1 dcBA G2 Bc:|2 dcBA G4||

Five comments

The Maid of the House

A Co. Antrim fiddle maker by the name of Dan O’Loan left this tune scribled on a scrap of paper in an old fiddle case & one of his musical relatives, one Danny Bonnar, of Ballycastle found it & passed the tune onto me.

The tune was signed by a Leo Ginley who happens to be a legendary fiddler aroundf these parts.

However, we don’t know if this tune was actually written by Leo Ginley, or if he just liked it & copied the notes down from someone else’s playing.

Or did he forget the name & call it The Maid of the House just to remember it?

I know this is the place to get all the answers!

Maids of different sorts

Well I can’t answer your question about the Maid here, but I can tell you it is not:
-The Gatehouse Maid
-Woman (maid) of the House
-Woman of the House on The Floor

I found this extract on Fiddler’s Companion:
<<MAID OF THE HOUSE, THE. Irish, Reel. G Major. Standard. AABB. Source for notated version: Jack McGuire (County Cavan & Belfast), Seán McGuire’s father [McGuire & Keegan]. McGuire and Keegan (Irish Tunes by the 100, Vol. 1), 1975; No. 52, pg. 14.>>>

The Maid of the House - G Major

Thanks very much for that information Donough.

Interesting to see that there is certainly a Co. Antrim connection to both stories.

I can confirm that your notes are correct too, at least in as much as I’d forgotten that the tune was actually written in GMajor, but I had transposed it a number of years ago, when I was arranging tracks for my own tapes.

In G Major it should look like this.

X: 1
T: Maid Of The House, The
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Gmaj
dG (3GGG dGBG|GABd edcB|ABcd eA (3AAA|ABcd efge|
dG (3GGG dGBG|GABd edcB|ABcd efge|1 dcBA G2 ge:|2 dcBA G2 Bc||
dg (3ggg bg (3ggg|dggf edcB|Aa (3aaa abag|eaag fdef|
g2 ge f2 fd|efge dcBG|ABcd efge|1 dcBA G2 Bc:|2 dcBA G4||

Hi,

We play this tune as The Blacksmith’s Fancy and it’s A version that’s called the Rising of the Sun in Donegal. My wife got both tunes from James Byrne.

Jim