The Spike Island Lasses reel

It’s about time this mighty tune showed up. Learn this tune!!! Now!!

Is it just me or does this tune have a most unusual structure.
This is not meant as a criticism - I love the unexpectedness of the tune. I wish it got played in sessions more.
Cheers
Donough

Hello
This version of the tune is from the CD "the south west wind" of Ronan Browne and Peter O’Loughlin.
I have in a book another version more "normal", but this one is more interesting. More i play it , more I like it.

In reply to Odono’s comments I find the second part almost identical to the B part of Bank of Ireland which can lead to some confusion although with enough practice I’m sure it will work out OK eventually.

Does the Spike Island refer to the on in Cork harbour.?????

That’s the only Spike Island I know of.

I take it that this tune dates back to a time when there once lasses on Spike as opposed to just interned joyriders from Dublin*. It’s known as "The Spike Island School Of Motoring" in Cobh.


*explanation for anyone who doesn’t get it: Spike Island is now a prison. It’s like a mild-mannered Alcatraz in the middle of Cork harbour.
There was a "prison break" a few years back when some workmen left a ladder near a wall and there happened to be a raft lying around on the beach.

Isn’t Spike Island famous for a prison?

Oops, didn’t read down far enough on that comment. Sorry Jeremy

I can see Spike Island out my front room window, but I never saw any lassies out there. Dont get me wrong, I am not looking at Spike from the inside by the way. Maybe we should change the name to "The Spike Island inmates" or" The Holy Ground Hotel".

Jaysus, you weren’t kidding about the B part, Bannerman — I’m going to have watch that once I learn this tune.

Zina

Thanks for putting this tune up, Gian - I’ve been trying to learn this at a session in a Zen-like manner; (by desiring to know it and going into a meditative trance whenever it is played.) I’ve come to the conclusion it can’t be done. At least not by me. The dots are a big help!

Is this tune supposed to have repeats or is there a "second ending" for each part?

No, I’ve only heard it played as posted, with no repeats, just straight through as is.

Have a listen to the way Angelina and Peter Carberry play the 3rd part on their "Memories from the Holla" album-nice setting! Also, it sounds great down in G, starting on F natural, (sorry pipers and flute players) sounds magic!
Love this tune, could never get sick of it!

This is very different from thge session setting played around north Clare. Is this a common setting in other parts of the world? Or just the ideosyncratic playing of Ronan Browne and Peter O’Loughlin, God bless them both?
Perhaps one more reason not to learn from the dots.

There are loads of reasons not to "learn from the dots," and I highly suggest you find a session or recording or whatever before learning this tune. If you want to play it the way Ronan Browne and Peter O’Loughlin do, then these dots might help. Even though my version follows the same scheme basically, it’s still different enough. But a tune like this has so many recorded examples you can surely find one version that suits your instrument. Or maybe borrow from a couple of them. If you have any good players in your area you might want to get their version of it.

Carmel O’Dea does a great job on this tune!

Could do a great deal worse than learn it from this clip. Paddy Keenan, from just before 1.50

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R8zMsgIPA8

play video

Here it is by Derek Hickey and Siobhan Peoples

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Fnr9UolRaA

play video

I love the way the mode changes from mixolydian to major, it’s like the reappearance of the sun after a heavy summer shower.

I was just going over this tune and this setting didn’t jibe with what was in my head… This is more in line with how I remember it being played. The first part is a bit different that the original transcription but the other parts are more or less the same as I know them.

X: 1
T: The Spike Island Lasses
R: reel
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
K: Dmix
|| cAGB ADDE|FDAD FDAd|cAGB AGFG |Adde fded|
cAGB ADDE |FD (3DDD (3EFG AB|cAGB AGFG|Addc d3 e||
f2df efge|dfed cA (3AAA|fedf edcd|Add^c d2=cd|
e~a3 efge|dfed cAGG|Addc d2dB|Adde fded||
=cAGc A3d|B3G A3B|=cAGB AG(3EFG|Adde fded|
=cAGc ~A3 c|BGGF ~G3 B|=cAGB AG(3EFG|Addc d3e||
f2 ad faad|faaf geeg|fdAd faad|fage dcAc|
defg ~a3 b|agfa ~g2 ae|fedf edcA|d3e fded||

A mighty version by Joseph Keane, who plays it after Sailing in to Walpole’s Marsh.

http://comhaltas.ie/music/detail/comhaltaslive_429_9_joseph_keane/

Hi there, I’ve not posted a comment before but I thought I would wade on in with my thought for the day. In relation to a past query about the location of the Spike Island in question, I wondered that instead of the harbour prison ( where lasses may not have been much seen) if it might not refer to the area of Spike Island next to the River Mersey in North West England. There is a canal that passes there, built originaly in the late 1700s to supply the burgeoning indutries. And I’ld bet that there might have been lads from all over working there navvying to build it. One of them may have taken a fancy to the local females and been inspired. Just a thought and maybe a lost one. Cheers

I’m not a fan of "orchestras", but this one is a bit special :

https://youtu.be/BDUpPuOp0g8?list=PLExVmsXr-vWt5N07AFumzS6OqIghBFQON

play video

"Spike Island Lasses", followed by "Over The Moor To Maggie"

From a great set in the Breaking Trad album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89OVrvcgonA

play video

Yvonne Casey & Macdara Ó Faoláin on Fiddle and Bouzouki
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrIpxpYo_ak

play video

In “Waifs and Strays of Irish Melody” (1922) the tune Reidy’s (#287) bears quite the resemblance to “Spike Island Lasses.”

Well done, McConville! Spike Island in Cork was never a womens’ prison. It was exclusively for men. On the other hand:

“John Hutchinson opened his first Alkali factory on Spike Island and, to meet the heavy demand for labour, large influxes of Irish workers descended into Widnes. Newtown, Lugsdale and Moss Bank took the highest numbers of settlers and developed rapidly, so much so that the area around Newtown was known locally as ‘Little Ireland’.”

It does sound more probable to me that The Spike Island Lasses were factory workers in that factory. They were definitely not prison inmates in Cork Harbour.

Source: https://hbcnewsroom.co.uk/what-do-you-know-about-the-area-of-marrabone-widnes/

Yes, I recon you have the right Spike Island there Thierry. In its heyday it was one of those ‘eastern suburbs’ of Ireland. I once lived not too far away from there.

Great tune in so many ways. To my ears it seems to alternate between modes. Would it make sense to think of the A and C parts as Dmix and the B and D parts as Dmaj?

Transcribed from banjo as played by Pauline Conneely here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lapt01EQ6hU

play video

Máire Na Chathasaigh comments..
“The source for the tune “The Spike Island Lasses" was old John Dwyer from Caolrua, near Eyeries, on the Beara Peninsula in West Cork - father of the late fiddle-player and tune-composer John Dwyer. The latter’s cousin Sean O’Dwyer tells me that he remembers first learning it from his Uncle John around 1958. He told him that he learned it from the well-known Waterford piper Liam Walsh, with whom he was interned in the jail on Spike Island in Cork Harbour during the War of Independence. However, there seems to be no record of Liam Walsh ever playing it and no references to the tune before the mid-20th-century. I always strongly suspected that old John Dwyer composed the tune himself, but was shy (like all the Dwyers were) about claiming credit for it, but his son John confirmed it to my sisters when we were playing on a TV programme together in 2019. So we have it from the horse’s mouth that old John Dwyer composed the tune!”

It’s the second tune on here. Some fine playing!
https://youtu.be/70MtwomewRk

play video

Here’s an unornamented barebones version.