My Ballingarry Lady waltz

This is from a CD made by a local group called Fonn based in Enniscorthy, Co.Wexford. Padraig Sinnott and his wife Brigid play in the group along with Patrick Kavanagh on fiddle. Padraig plays pipes and whistle/ flute and was on last years Comhaltas tour in Ireland and I think maybe this year in USA. Anyway this lovely track is by Joe Whelan, a box player from Wexford based in the States and is titled after his mother from Ballingarry in Co.Tipperary. There is a lovely version on the Fonn CD, with Padraig and Brigid alternating between whistle and box on the various parts. I have posted here in D major but when I play it on the whistle I like to flatten the C’s which gives it a mellow feeling.

Nice tune, but should a bunch of the measures have an extra half beat. I’m seeing several measures that have 2 quarter notes and 3 eighth notes, which adds up to 3.5 beats. Am I missing something?

Jason,
those ‘3 eighth notes’ are a triplet - that’s the way I play and entered them - hasn’t come out quite right on the Sheetmusic. It’s in 3/4 time so the these add up to a crotchet and the other two make up the bar.
Also the dotted notes in the second part of the tune are generally rolled or ornamented.

Yeah, I know about triplets, but my brain wasn’t thinking last night that that’s what they could be. I was just reading what was there. All I know is when I was reading the sheetmusic, I kept getting off because of that apparent extra 1/2 beat. Clarified. Thanks.

Hussar, I think you’ll find it was written by *John* Whelan, not Joe.

John recorded this on his recently released (2013) Passage Of Time CD, this tune featuring Seamus Connolly, Tom Wetmore and Gabriel Donahue. Lovey tune, fabulous album. Highly recommended.

If you use ABC notation you can add the name of the composer by entering:

C: John Whelan

Do this after the title on a separate line. We should make sure credit is given where credit is due. My instructor learned it directly from John Whelan and I’m glad to see it on The Session. Lovely tune indeed.

Generally that’s right, AccordionGirl. However, things are done slightly different on the session.org, so we credit the composer in the comments here. I agree with you that this is an attractive tune.

Out of curiosity, why is that? Don’t those names then get lost to history?

This site operates as a database, and for the most part works very well. The composer field wasn’t built into the way it has been constructed. I don’t know why, but I might guess that when setting it up, Jeremy reasoned that as much of the music here is traditional, the composer field wasn’t necessary. However, I do not speak for Jeremy - he invites you to contact him personally on matters to do with the site.

It’s also on “From the Heart”, with John playing it solo.

https://thesession.org/recordings/5731

From the playing of John Whelan on “Taking Time” #17 from 10 February 2021

This is how I hear the tune as played on youtube by John Whelan on CD Celtic Reflections.

https://youtu.be/SfOvSkZBZp8

play video

but it seems this video will not load here

Leprecawn - some odd accidentals in X:4: a C# in bar A8 (all Cs are sharp anyway) and a B# in A14. Did you mean them to be there?

The composer John Whelan said recently that he wrote this song for his mother.

John runs a nice online Slow Session on Wed. nights 7-8:30. You can find details on his website or FaceBook page. I really enjoy these sessions and have learned a lot of great tunes from John. Also - he generously offers participants an archive of all tunes played, along with videos of all sessions. So it’s easy to go back and learn or relearn tunes. It’s all free, but gratuities are much appreciated. Newcomers are warmly welcomed.