Mulvihill’s reel

Some years back BBC Scotland took Dick Gaughan over to the west coast of Ireland to see if they could track down any of his ancestors, and made a TV programme about it. He ended up in Collooney, I think, in Sligo, in the company of the great Joe Dowd, and played this tune as a solo in a session. I had heard him play it live,but have never heard it anywhere else. It’s one of those slightly ambiguous tunes which could be either a reel or hornpipe. I think the Mulvihill in question was Charlie, but couldn’t swear to that. Anyone else know the tune, I’d love more information.

It appears here https://thesession.org/tunes/3295 and in Lesl Harker’s book “Second Wind: 300 More Tunes from Mike Rafferty” as The Bath Road hornpipe. There is no background given in either place. I’ll have a look around online using that title.

From http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/BARN_BB.htm#BATH_ROAD_HORNPIPE
it’s also called Brendan’s Fancy (notated by Brendan Mulvihill) and the Concertina Hornpipe (recorded by Randal Bays), and it appears in O’Neill’s 1850.

Now I remember where I know it from - Edel Fox taught it at Catskill Irish Arts Week in 2008. It also appears in Martin Mulvihill’s manuscript tunebook.

A tune by the same title but completely different in form also appears in Phil Rubenzer’s book of session tune from the Milwaukee Irishfest.

This tune appears as “The Concertina” hornpipe on Brendan Mulvihill’s “Flax In Bloom” recording, so perhaps Gaughan was referring to Brendan rather than Charlie, as I’d thought.

I got that tune from Kevin Crawford, who told me he calls it Mrs Casey’s. He got it from Martin Mulvihill (Brendan’s father) when he still was alive, and Martin said that he got it from a Clare concertina player named Mrs Casey.

https://youtu.be/6evFWYLTRNA

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