The Pride Of Petravore hornpipe

This goes nicely with “The Rights Of Man”.

A low B (on the G string of the fiddle) makes a nice “lead-in” note to this tune…whistle players will have to make do with a D note instead.

The best way to ornament this tune is rhythmically. Try playing a round of this in a staccato fashion, with short, clipped notes. Alternatively, try turning the four E’s at the start of the second part into two long notes.

For a great recording of The Rights of Man + The Pride of Petravore,
check out the album “Ballroom” by DeDannan. It’s my favorite recording
of these hornpipes. Incredible bounce and rhythm. ( It’s track 1.) The album
is worth checking out in any event: great fiddling by Frankie Gavin,
and some of the finest Dolores Keane singing.

I have heard this Hornpipe played last in set that started with the Galway Hornpipe into Rights of Man then finishing with Eileen Og. It was on a CD by the Abbey Ceili Band. It is a great combination.

A lovely tune. I first heard and learned this as a march back in the 70s… I like the barndance/hornpipe swing to it too… I will try to remember to return with a march transcription…

M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: march
K: Emin
|: B,D | E3 F G3 A | B>cBA G2 E2 | D2 DE FG/F/ FG | AFDF AB/A/ GF |
E2 EF G2 GA | B>cBA GFGA | B2Bc BAGF | E2 (3FED E2 :|
|: (3Bcd | e2 e/e/e e2 f>e | dBGA B4 | B>AFG A4 | A>GEF GFGB |
e2 ef/e/ e2 ge | dBGA B2 GA | B2Bc BAGF | E2 ED E2 :|

Manus McGuire does this tune on his solo album but calls it Molly at the Fair.

Must be showing my age but I remember this as the theme tune “The One Nighters” for a film about Ireland’s top rockers back in the sixties, The Royal Showband from Waterford. I used to play it on tenor sax along with an electric guitar - hardly an accepted duet for fleadh competitions!!

We play this tune, which we know as “Eileen Óg”, with quite a swing to it and it always seems to go down well with audiences.
I was brought up hearing my parents sing this and other songs. In those days, Percy French songs, music-hall numbers by the Flanagan brothers and jigs and reels played by ceili bands all came into the category of Irish Music and were played, sung and enjoyed as such.
Only in later years did the “traditional” criteria begin to be applied and - without wishing to re-open the can of worms about what is “traditional” - it would be a brave musician or singer these days who tried to perform any of this material at, say, a Comhaltas session.
Nobody seems to know where Petravore is, although somebody claimed to have seen a signpost in Co. Leitrim pointing to it.
Ballintubber, also mentioned in the song, is of course in Co. Mayo.

I’ve never heard this in a session. Dunno why as everyone else seems to have 🙂

Not keen on the march version - seems to fit much more naturally into a sort of barndance mold for me (sorry ‘c’ & thanks for transcription btw).

We play it after King of the Fairies (unless we play Rights of Man)

murfbox mentioned having heard this sung–does anyone here have the words, or is it just scat style singing?

See
htp://contemplator.com/ireland/eileen.html

Hmmm..that link doesn´t seem to work.
Try googling “Pride of Petravore” and you should get the words.

http://contemplator.com/ireland/eileen.html

Thanks for that one, Ramiro.
¡ genial !

You can hear the song / lyrics in a great version on the very first Ian and Sylvia album (titled “Ian & Sylvia”) circa 1963. I guess I am giving my aga away but this is where I first heard it. Great song and great tune!

but it may be Percy French (1854-1920) who penned the lyrics. Oge means ‘the younger’ and I thing Petrovore is a contraction of the Irish for Peter’s Pub or something like that. French wrote some very funny stuff, too: Prose, Poems, and Parodies of Percy French; Talbot Press, Dublin Ireland, 1929. I have a 1966 edition.

EILEEN OGE

Eileen Oge, and that the darlin’s name is
Through the barony her features they were famous
If we loved her, who is there to blame us
For wasn’t she the pride of Petravore?
But her beauty made us all so shy
Not a man could look her in the eye
Boys, O boys, sure that’s reason why
We’re in mourning for the pride of Petravore

CHORUS
Eileen Og, me heart is growing grey
Ever since the day, you wandered far away
Eileen Og, there’s good fish in the sea
But there’s none of them like the pride of Petravore

Friday at the fair of Ballintubber
Eileen met McGrath the cattle jobber
I’d like to set me mark upon the robber
For he stole away the Pride of Petravore
He never seemed to see the girl at all
Even when she ogled him underneath her shawl
Looking big and masterful when she was looking small
Most provoking for the Pride of Petravore

Chorus

So it went as it was in the beginning
Eileen Og was bent upon the winning
Big McGrath contentedly was grinning
Being courted by the Pride of Petravore
Says he, ‘I know a girl who’d knock you into fits
At that Eileen nearly lost her wits
The upshot of the ruction was that now the robber sits
With his arm around the Pride of Petravore

Chorus

Boys, O boys, with fate ‘tis hard to grapple
Of my eye ‘tis Eileen was the apple
And now to see her walkin’ to the chapel
Wid the hardest featured man in Petravore
And now boys, this is all I have to say
When you do your courting make no display
If you want them running after you just walk the other way
For they’re mostly like the Pride of Petravore

Chorus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVGvq-Wtyg8

play video

The words to this song were written by Percy French. The tune is by Houston Collisson, with whom he collaborated after 1891.—http://www.contemplator.com/ireland/eileen.html

French has some hilarious stuff. Prose, Poems and Parodies; The Talbot Press, LTD, Dublin, 1951. I have a great video of a recitation of French’s “Carmody’s Mare” by an Irish Barley farmer named Ronnie. If Ronnie is as good a farmer as he is in performing this recitation I’m sure to have consumed some of his harvest in various Irish malt beverages: http://vid7.photobucket.com/albums/y286/5Wire/CarmodysMare.mp4 starts of blank… © Used by Permission of the Angel Band as a member.

Transcription from the great version of Cathy Jordan on Youtube which Aaron posted above

My all-time favourite version of this song is on https://thesession.org/recordings/2005
To my taste Cathy Jordan’s version, posted above, is much inferior because it is sung precisely to the hornpipe. I feel that when a tune is used for a song air, it needs to be interpreted more freely, fitted to the words rather than the other way around.

The Irish Descendants:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3Nbwbr-Jy0

play video

The Lasses:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y-7YSM5jZI

play video

Another take with Cathy Jordan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLsOxZtduNA

play video

X6 - X8 are a few different takes on previous settings here, others online, and my own slight spin here and there.

From the playing De Dannan, transposed from Fmin.

On their album How The West Was Won, there are two tracks of Rights Of Man / Pride Of Petravore, this setting is from the second of those two, labelled as “Alternative”.

From the playing of Liz Knowles, transposed from Dmin.

From the playing of Daire Mulhern, transposed down from Amin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBgO5jBAKkg

play video

This is as close as I can get to De Dannan’s version in their set with Rights of Man. Cheers!

https://youtu.be/SHFIqOjeW7U - starts at 1m 37s

play video

If anyone is still wondering where “Petravore” is, there’s a reference to it in a Wikipedia article on Tullynamoltra, Co. Cavan (a townland in the civil parish of Templeport): “Pedar a Voher’s Crossroads which is immortalised in the song by Percy French as Eileen Oge, The Pride of Petravore. Pedar a Voher is a corruption of the Irish ‘Peadar an bhóthair’ for ‘Peter of the Road’, a Peter McGovern who kept a public house at the crossroads in the 18th century.” There are a number of towns called Ballintubber (Ballintober), the closest being in Roscommon. Not that it matters, since I doubt French really had any real places in mind.