The Policeman’s Holiday jig

You’ll have to forgive me as this is my first attempt at submitting a tune.The person I first heard playing this tune was the flute player Davy Maguire from Belfast - I think it’s a bit of a party piece. He used to play it in sessions with the McSherry’s. Davy, Joanne McSherry, Paul McSherry and a great mandolin player whose name was Milo, I think, formed a band called Commonality who recorded this tune on their first and only eponymous LP. Emer Mayock does a version on her “Merry bits of Timber” CD and John Doherty recorded it; you can hear a snatch of the tune on this site:
http://cdnow.com/switch/from=sr-850864/target=buyweb_purchase/ddcn=SD-1564+34020+2

My version is close to what I remember Davy playing on the flute- as you can hear on the John Doherty recording there is plenty of scope for variations.

I also found this reference to a piece of music with the same name but can’t find out whether it’s the same\similar!
http://mmd.foxtail.com/Archives/Digests/200103/2001.03.04.04.html

Good luck with this one, as it’s a bitch to play.

Con

Yikes! How did he do those F naturals? Did he use keys?

I don’t know if his flute is fully keyed, but he’s definitely got a few on there… I heard Jean Michel Veillon play it in Belfast once, but I suspect he learned it from Davy as they’re great friends.

Davy’s band was called Commonalty - i.e. without the “i”.

Only took me a year and a half to spot that.

X: 1
T: Policeman’s Holyday, The
M: 6/8
L: 1/8
R: jig
K: Gmaj
N: Version from Emer Mayock’s “Merry Bits of Timber”
g||dBG DGc|ABd dB/c/d|e2c EAc|g3 gfe|
dBG DGc|B2d dcB|A^ce ~a3|1fd^c d2g:|2fd^c def|
~g3 ~f3|e2e dBA |GB/c/d g2e|dBA GB/c/d|
~g3 ~f3|~e3 d^cB|A^ce ~a3|fd^c d3|
gab fga|efg dBA|GB/c/d gB/c/d|gdB GB/c/d|
~g3 ~f3|~e3 d^cB|A^ce ~a3|fd^c d3|
Bc^c dbf|agd f=fe|dbf agd|fed bge|
dbf agd|B2g gdB|A^ce ~a3|1fd^c d2z:|2fd^c d2g||

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSMVDK56Nt8 shows this tune must be quite ancient and was associated with a particular “sean-nôs” danse.

play video

I hope you were joking birlibirdie 🙂 Not much in the way of videos of this tune out there but I did find this one by Emer Mayock

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwb9wzpVe7g

play video

Setting from the Northern Fiddler, of John Doherty’s playing, dutifully copied by Bill Black. In the book the C# notes marked here with a plus sign were noted as being “C natural the first time around, C sharp later.” Listening to John play the tune on the Celebrated Recordings CD I don’t hear this at all. Feldman left out the repeats of the 1st and 3rd parts too. Perhaps John played the tune this way on the tape Alan was working from but judging by the morass of transcription errors in the book I doubt it.

From transcription of John Doherty version at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXaYHMukWsk

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Transcribed from the playing of Ciaran O’ Maonaigh. Glencolmcille Fiddle Week. August 2022