Tag Archives: Session Tunes
The Wise Maid (D)
The reel known as “The Wise Maid” seems to date only from the 1970s, but is now in the top twenty most widely-known Irish reels in the world. The well-known whistle player Larry McCullough, in his The Complete Irish Tinwhistle Tutor (1987), attributes the tune to the Ardara, Co. Donegal, fiddler John Doherty (1900-1980), as does accordionist […]
Mountain Road (D)
“The Mountain Road” is a reel composed by Michael Gorman (1895-1970), an Irish fiddler from County Sligo.  When he was young, his foster parents sent him for fiddle lessons to James Gannon (who taught Michael Coleman). Willie Clancy used to tell a story about a nine year old Gorman: “Gannon wrote out the tunes in his […]
Silver Spear (D)
The reel “The Silver Spear” is a popular session tune, more so at one time, but still surely in the top ten worldwide session repertoire.  It is followed almost ineluctable by “Humours of Tulla” around Kansas City, and is common also at slow sessions everywhere, such as the Musique Irlandaise slow session at the Quiet Man pub in […]
 Drowsy Maggie (Edor)
“Drowsy Maggie” is a very popular reel at sessions all over the world. It’s #1425 in O’Neill’s 1850 – i.e., O’Neill’s Music of Ireland (1903) – and so probably dates back to the mid-nineteenth century. However, there’s not much clear information about the tune’s origin or subsequent history. It should not be confused with a set […]