The Humours Of Lissadell reel

I’ve been sweating this little monster of a tune for over a month now. Personally, I’d recommend using one bow stroke for notes such as "B~B2". Enjoy.

Full of little twists and turns, this one. I’ll bet all the backers love it.

..plays a lovely version of this tune on the second teada album.

This is one of my favourite tunes as it is so versatile, i think it lends itself to be played slowly, yet it can also be played at a fair lick.

Denis Lanctot’s version (on his album For the Love of Tara) is truly amazing… brilliant, crisp and absolutely percolating, giving this tune terrrrrific lift. Worth a listen.

Galway fiddler is right, as demonstrated by Paul Smyth’s nice and steady version, and by Molloy’s faster recording on "Pathway to the Well." They both sound great. It is no easier on the flute either.

I’ve listening to learn the De Danann version. They play it as Gm Dorian, one flat.

This tune was written for many of John McGrath’s students as ‘The Musical Bridge’. John’s nephew told me that there was such a bridge back in Mayo near where John lived. By the way the second part was significantly different.

If you want to hear a hair raising version, listen to Joe Derrane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBbD_6FlVtc

play video

Learning this tune on whistle or flute, I found this recording to be quite easy to follow, especially on the tricky B section:
(Fiddle & Flute: Natalie Padilla, Blayne Chastain And Peter Romero)
https://thesession.org/recordings/3977

A version for the likes of us who can’t go lower than D.

This backer absolutely loves this tune (of course being a melody player doesn’t hurt either). In the most simplified form, the A section can just bob back and forth between Em and Bm; and the B section makes sense if you think of it as being in the key of D, except bracketed by Em at the beginning of the 1st and the end of the 8th bars. Still a little twisty - but for me that’s most of the fun of this particular tune.

a version from Michelle Mulcahy from her album: "Suaimhneas"

Lios an Dall Uí Dálaigh, Court of the Blind O’Daly, is near Drumcliffe in Sligo, where Yeats is buried. The Gore-Booths (Countess Markievicz) is associated with Lissadell House. The great master of the Dán Díreach style of poetry, the poet Muireadhach Albanach Ó Dálaigh, is associated with Lissadell, before he was exiled (for killing a tax collector) to Scotland where he founded the MacVurich School of Poetry, before attending the Fifth Crusade to Egypt.