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Cornelius Curtin’s Big Balloon jig

Also known as Con Curtin’s Big Balloon, Con Curtin’s Big Baloon, Hide And Go Seek, Paddy Carty’s.

There are 17 recordings of this tune.

This tune has been recorded together with

Cornelius Curtin’s Big Balloon appears in 2 other tune collections.

Cornelius Curtin’s Big Balloon has been added to 7 tune sets.

Cornelius Curtin's Big Balloon has been added to 76 tunebooks.

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One setting

1
X: 1
T: Cornelius Curtin's Big Balloon
R: jig
M: 6/8
L: 1/8
K: Emin
d|:BGE EGE|BGE EdB|AFD DED|
DFA ded|BGE EDE|BAB d2e|
fdB AGF|1 GEE E2d:|2 GEE E3||
eBe gfe|bge efe|dAd fed|afd dgf|
eBe gfe|bge edc|BGE AcA|BGE E3|
eBe gfe|bge efe|dAd fef|aga def|
g2b aga|bge gfg|edB BAF|GEE E3||

Nine comments

Cornelius Curtin’s Big Ballon

Source: Paddy Carty_Traditionsl Irish Music
Transcription: Gian Marco Pietrasanta

The Title

Re: the rather strange title, I think the “Big Balloon” was actually a pub somewhere in London.

Cornelius Curtin

Con Curtin, the well known Kerry fiddle player, was the landlord of “The Balloon” pub in Fulham, SW London in the sixties.
It was famous for its sessions, especially after hours, and most of the Irish musicians in London at the time played there.
Con returned to his home in Kerry (soewhere in the Tralee - Listowel are, I think) and is still alive and well. He is one of the few living musicians to have a summer festival in his honour.

Con Curtin is still alive and well in Brosna, a small village on the Cork, Kerry & Limerick border. A living legend!

I wouldn’t call it the same tune, but this one sounds similiar to “Kevin Moloney’s” on Mike Rafferty’s album Speed 78.

O’Neill’s 1001

This tune, thought by many to be a composition of flute-player Paddy Carty, actually appears in O’Neill’s as “Hide and Go Seek”.

Further history

O‘Neill published settings of this tune in all three of his books under the title ’Hide and Go Seek‘, and this title has survived to be applied (shortened to ’Hide and Seek‘) to a version of this tune appearing in Josephine Keegan’s 2004 collection “A Drop in the Ocean”. However the tune can be traced back to its publication as ’Captain Holmes‘ in Ryan’s Mammoth Collection, 1883. Another case of a tune from this source being swept up by O’Neill to make up his “1850”.

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