The White Leaf reel

This version is from Patrick Mangan’s album, Farewell to Ireland.

Dave Bulmer & Neil Sharpley

X: 2
T: White Leaf, The
B: Bulmer & Sharpley: Music from Ireland, Volume 4, page 9, tune #27
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: AMaj
|: E/F/G |\
A2 cA eAcA | B/c/d ef edcA | Bcde fdde | fdad fdcB |
A2 cA eAcA | B/c/d ef edcA | Bcde fgaf | edcB A2 :|
|: ce |\
aA ~A2 cAce | a2 ga fece | bf ~f2 fece | bffe ^defg |
aA ~A2 cAce | a2 ga faec | Bcde fgaf | edcB A2 :|

I’ve adjusted the triplets from (3EFG & (3Bcd to E/F/G & B/c/d

It’s like the Mason’s Apron

I assume this is a northern piping tune. Lots of pipery stuff going on. I have Tara Bingham playing it and it’s lovely and challenging on the flute but I am having a hard time with it on the fiddle.

A setting from piper Jack Wade is in Ceol Rince na hÉireann IV: http://www.nigelgatherer.com/books/CRE/cre4.html The annotation there is “With a note, ‘This is the old way of playing it. It is played quite different now like many more.’ The Mason’s Apron is a version of this: it is probably to that reel and its popularity in the 1960s that Jack Wade was referring in his note. ” Wade was from Leinster, also; his setting is in G of course, as it was the Irish pipes he played.

Scratch that, reading further he was actually from Monaghan.

X:3 from Sean Maguire & The Four Star Quartet, or my guess at what the basic setting is, anyway - Sean solos all through the tune with no end of variations while Bill Powers plays the tune per se underneath it all on his banjo-mandolin.

Jack Wade was actually a native of Dublin, but lived in Clones, Co. Monaghan where he worked as a customs officer. His wife was Marie who played piano in Jack Wade’s Ceili Band. I spent some time in their company during the All Ireland fleadh ceoil in Clones back in 1964.