Farewell To Connaught reel

One of the most powerful tunes I know. It opens John McSherry’s (and Mike McGoldrick’s) recording “At First Light”, now without reason. When I first heard John McSherry plays this tune it was really breathtaking.

🙂

“*not* without reason”
please forgive the negligence

Great tune !!

It’s just pretty obvious that this reel is closely related to Toss the Feathers: https://thesession.org/tunes/138

For many years I’ve been struck by a curious relationship between this tune, which in the Irish context is in D Mixolydian, and the American tune “Billy in the Lowground”, which is in C. These tunes are not “transposed” versions of the same melodic contour; rather, they are two different harmonic “readings” of literally the same melodic notes. The Irish version hears the tonal center in D and resolves at the end of the low strains to a D, the American version to a C, one step lower. But the high parts are virtually the same notes, with inverted harmonic interpretations of the high G and A.

By the way, I think the commented-on relationship to “Toss the Feathers” is incidental; certainly both these tunes are part of the active repertoire of many traditional musicians and would not be treated as ‘variants’ of each other; whereas there are several variants of “Toss the Feathers” known and kept distinguished in the repertoire (in D and Em).

An astute and interesting observation, Mark. I hear what you’re talking about, but I don’t know if I would’ve ever picked up on it on my own.

Version of this by Lucy is different from this transcription and she calls it Bobby Casey’s.

X: 1
T: Farewell To Connaught
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Dmix
|: D2 (3FED FGAB | c2cd cA G2 | Add^c d2 cd | ed^(3Bcd edcA |
D2 (3FED (3EFG AB | c2 (3Bcd cA G2 | ABAG EGAB | cAGE ED D2 :||
|: eggf g2 ed | (3Bcd ed cA A2 | eaag a3g | eaag ed (3Bcd |
eggf g2 ed | (3Bcd ed dAAG | ABAG EGAB | cAGE ED D2 :||
D2 (3FED FGAB | c2cd cA G2 | Add^c d2 Ad | d2(3Bcd edcA |

Lucy Farr doesn’t play this on ‘Heart and Home’. She plays ‘The Ragged Hank of Yarn’, before ‘The Maids of Mitchellstown’. Different tune altogether, just a misapplied title.

X: 1
T: Farewell To Connaught
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Dmix
|: D2 (3FED FGAB | c3 d cA ~G2 | Add^c d2 cd | ed^cd edcA |
D2 (3FED FGAB | c2 (3Bcd cA ~G2 | ABAG EGAB | cAGE ED ~D2 :|
|: eggf ~g2 ed | cded cA ~A2 | eaag aged | eaag edcd |
eggf ~g2 ed | cded dAAG | ABAG (3EFG AB | cAGE ED ~D2 :|

If you want to experiment with different hues of C’s (sharp to natural / different ones in the same run, bar or parts, etc) this is the tune.

a very similar version to Farewell to Connaught (fiddle Wood):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVA_zz9H1Q0&feature=related

play video

Burnett and Rutherford (old timey slidey lilt):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaHpFXhORCc&feature=related

play video

Lovely Yankee trio (portrait gallery):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3VGnaq_VsQ

play video

do it on the porch duet (dulcet dulcimer):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cdntgI4h8M&feature=related

play video

a ‘fiddle tune’ (guitar and mandolin):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpSv_wrNMIo&feature=related

play video

(5 string close up):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7PRkxGO1_k&feature=related

play video

http://www.thekennygallery.ie/gallery/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=430&category_id=13&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=32

by the incomparable Gertrude Degenhardt.

This version is based around a video of Josephine Marsh and Mick Kinsella playing this, which they play into The Maids of Mitchelstown

I’m just trying to understand the theory of irish trad and am a bit confused by this piece. It’s in D mix I presume. But I am confused by the c natural and C# placed throughout. Does it change in and out? How would one play these as an accompanist then?

Well, when tunes are like this you essentially back them like it’s in Dmaj but add in the chord C when it appears. So yes it appears in and out throughout the tune.

A bit overdue but that comment above about the relationship between this tune and Billy In The Lowground by Mark Simos is one of the most perceptive observations I can recall. I also play bluegrass guitar and one of the first tunes I ever learnt to play was Billy In The Lowground. I would never have spotted that it was a derivative of Farewell To Connaught without Mark’s post.

It’s a large family, Tony. Check out “The Belles of Tipperary” “Miss Monaghan” and “Paddy Cronin’s Reel”. The Irish settings are most likely to have developed from the Scots tune “The Braes of Auchtertyre” published in about 1761, and found both as a strathspey and a reel. There is also an older tune in 3/4 called “Oh Dear Mother What Shall I Do” (in Oswald’s Curious Tunes, 1740) which is the same tune at heart.