I first heard this tune at a session during Irish Week at the Augusta Heritage Festival and got the flute player to tape it for me. The tune was recorded by Altan on Horse with a Heart and by Eileen Ivers on Fresh Takes where it was called "The Petticoat I Bought in Mullingar". Josephine Keegan recorded it on her 2-CD album Lifeswork: The Compositions of Josephine Keegan. This setting is a combination of my own and Josephine’s original setting.  The original setting can be found in The Keegan Tunes, a collection of Josephine's compositions; this setting can be found in her more recent collection of tunes, A Drop in the Ocean.  The rest of the story is in the introduction.

2. Connaughtman's Rambles / Pipe on the Hob / Banks of Lough Gowna (jigs)

My own combination of three very popular session tunes.  Recordings of "The Pipe on the Hob" and "The Banks of Lough Gowna" go back to those of Michael Coleman.  Settings of these tunes can be found in most tune books.

3. The Happy Man / Palmer's Gate / Glountane School - 1862 (reels)

The Happy Man was composed by Paddy O’Brien of County Tipperary. I got the notes from a book of his tunes entitled The Compositions of Paddy O’Brien; the only recording of it that I’ve found was by his daughter, Eileen O’Brien, on a cassette also entitled The Compositions of Paddy O’Brien. I got the other two reels from the playing of Matt Cranitch and Sliabh Notes on their CD Gleanntán. Palmer’s Gate was composed by Joe Liddy; the notes can be found in The Leitrim Fiddler, published by Comhaltus Ceoltoiri Eireann and containing 214 of his tunes. The last reel was composed by Terry "Cuz" Teehan in 1956 in memory of the school he attended, a national school founded in 1862; his teacher there was Padraic O’Keefe, the great fiddle player from the Sliabh Luachra area.

4. If Ever You Were Mine (air)

This beautiful melody was written as a waltz by fiddle player Maurice Lennon, formerly with Stockton’s Wing. It has been recorded by Cherish the Ladies and the piper Jerry O'Sullivan. Maurice told me he wrote it as a young man after seeing a beautiful girl that he longed for, but couldn't have because she was dating someone else. I’ve tried to capture a more lonely feeling with this air-like setting.

5. Maud Millar / Bird in the Bush / Sligo Maid (reels)

I learned the first of these three popular session tunes from Karen Ashbrook when we taught the Irish hammered dulcimer class at the Augusta Heritage Festival. The other two were picked up over the years. They can be found in most tune books.

6. Paddy Fahy’s (#15) / Love at the Endings / Maudabawn Chapel (reels)

The first reel was composed by East Galway fiddler Paddy Fahey; I learned it from the playing of Martin Hayes on his recording, The Lonesome Touch. Paddy Fahey composed over 40 tunes but did not name them, instead he gave them a number. This one is known as "Paddy Fahey's #15", although Josephine has it as "Fahy's Flight" in her new tune book A Drop In the Ocean. The other two reels are by Ed Reavy. Born in Barnagrove, Cootehill, County Cavan, Reavy moved to the US in 1912 at age 14 and settled in Philadelphia where he became a prolific composer of tunes in the Irish tradition, many of which are popular session tunes both in the US and in Ireland. The title for the second reel comes from a line in Sean O’Casey’s play Purple Dust when O’Killigan and Avril make a home in the west of Ireland to find "things to say and things to do, and love at the endings."  "Maudabawn Chapel" was the local chapel in Ed’s parish as a youth.

7. The Curlew Hills / Peach Blossoms (barndances)

"The Curlew Hills" was brought to my attention by Josephine Keegan after suggesting we look for other Curlew tunes to record. James Morrison first recorded "The Curlew Hills" with Paddy Kiloran in 1931 but with another barndance. I learned these two barndances from the solo recording Morrison made in 1935 for Columbia Records. "The Curlew Hills" has also been called the "Glenbeigh Hornpipe" and was recorded by James Kelly as "The Curlew Polka", but it was originally a barndance.

8. The Famine Suite (march / hornpipe / air / jig / reel)

I found these tunes in a publication of the music of John Brady entitled By the Slopes of the Longridge, published by Comhaltus Ceoltoiri Eireann. I was immediately taken not only by the music but by the story John Brady was telling.  I was fortunate to be able to visit John in the Summer of 2003 in his home in Killeigh, near Tullamore, Co. Offaly and get these tunes from the source. The next time I visited John, I played the tunes as a continuous suite as they are recorded here. Interestingly enough, John said he had thought of them as five separate tunes rather than as a continuous suite and was surprised how well they flowed together.

In the short time I spent with John Brady, he impressed me as a man with a deep understanding and feeling of life; moreover, he has the power to express these with great words and music. In these five tunes, he has used the music to tell a story of this terrible period in Irish history. The following is a paraphrase of John’s comments on these tunes from By the Slopes of the Longridge.

After the Catholic Emancipation of 1829, there was great hope that life would improve and people thought of marching free of the chains of bondage. But it was not to be. The plaintive hornpipe recalls the anxiety of first signs of the blight seen in the potato gardens. The lament tries to express the sadness and death, mostly of the poor. As the people struggled under that unrelenting cloud, they undoubtedly found some consolation and happiness in the music and eventually hope for the future.

The tunes in the Suite are as follows:

This Plaque was placed in the wall of the graveyard in Killeigh by John Brady; it was pointed out to me with great pride by his daughter Attracta.

9. Maid Behind the Bar / Colley's Reel (reels)

These popular session tunes were among the first reels that I learned as a member of St. James’s Gate, the Irish band I've played with since its founding in 1982 in San Antonio, TX.  I first played them as a set following the "Christmas Eve" reel when I played with the Chieftains at the end of a concert in which local musicians were invited to play along for their finale.

10. Hunting the Curlews / Hag in the Churn / The Curlew’s Cry (jigs)

The first tune came to me one day when I was noodling around on a banjo trying to understand the tuning; it remained un-named until this recording. The name refers to the day Marcus Hernon and I spent chasing curlews around Feenish Island trying to get a picture of a curlew. "The Hag in the Churn," or "Cailleach 'sa Mhaistrim," refers to the folklore scenario in which witches would inhabit churns to steal butter. Butter could never be made if a witch was in the house when churning was taking place. Witches could not tolerate this tune, and it would therefore be played anytime butter was being churned to drive them away. It was a terrible mark on a woman if she left a house while this tune was being played and churning was going on. It was recorded by the Bothy Band in Out of the Wind Into the Sun, 1978. The notes can be found in O’Neil’s Music of Ireland. "The Curlew’s Cry" was composed by Marcus Hernon, a flute player from Carna, Connemara. The tune appears on a CD of Marcus’s compositions called The Grouse in the Heather; all the tunes on the CD are named for birds of Connemara.

11. Christmas Eve / Fred Finn's Reel / Noisy Curlew (reels)

"Christmas Eve" is a popular session tune composed by Galway fiddler Tommy Coen; it got its name after it was first played on the Irish radio station RTE on Christmas Eve in 1955. The second reel is a tune by Fred Finn, a well-known Sligo fiddler and was originally called "Berkshire Heights"; this setting came from the book Trip to Sligo, which contains a great number of Sligo settings of tunes. "The Noisy Curlew" is also known as "Sean Maguire's Reel;" Josephine said she often played this tune with Sean. I learned it from the playing of Eileen Ivers.

12. Cooley's Hornpipe / The Sligo Fancy (hornpipes)

"Cooley’s Hornpipe" was written by Paddy O’Brien of Co. Tipperary for Joe Cooley, a famous accordion player from Galway. I have found it in several tune books, and it has been recorded many times; this setting came from the book of his tunes entitled The Compositions of Paddy O’Brien. "The Sligo Fancy" seems to be a rather obscure tune; I have found the notes only in an Ossian publication An Irish Tunebook: Part 2. Seamus knew it quite well though and liked the combination.

13. Martin Rochford’s / Feargal O’Gadhra / The Musical Priest (reels)

I got the first reel from the playing of Vincent Griffin, a great fiddle player and dairy farmer from Feakle in East Clare; it appears on the CD Farewell to Lissycasey, a compilation of tunes from Clare played by a variety of musicians and also on his own CD Vincent Griffin, Traditional Irish Fiddle Music. I’ve not found it written down anywhere, but during the recording of this CD, Seamus Connolly pointed out that it seems to be a variation of "Forget Me Not," a tune by Larry Redican. I first heard "Fearghal O’Gadhra" ("Farrell O’Gara" & other spellings) in the movie The Secret of Roan Inish, where it was called "Mist on the Mountain." The O’Gadhra were chieftains in southern Sligo as early as the 10^th century. The name is derived from the Irish word for "mastif" meaning that in battle he fought like a mastif. Fearghal O’Gadhra (1599 - 1650) conceived of the idea and funded The Annals of the Four Masters, the first compilation of all the known Irish history. Settings for this tune and "The Musical Priest" can be found in many common tune books.

14. Blind Mary / Squire Parsons (Carolan tunes)

These two tunes have been attributed to Carolan, but it is not for certain that he composed them. In his authoritative study, Carolan: The Life and Times of an Irish Harper, Donal O’Sullivan states that "Blind Mary" is very unlike Carolan in style, but that if in fact he wrote it, it was possibly written for a blind woman harper named Máire Dhall (Blind Mary) who would have been know to him. Sullivan also states that if "Squire Parsons" was composed by Carolan, the subject was probably William Parson of Garadice, County Leitrim, a town that Carolan would have passed through on his travels.

15. Lark in the Morning / Tripping Up the Stairs / Rose in the Heather (jigs)

This medley of jigs was a part of the early repertoire of St. James's Gate although we never recorded them. We learned them from Kathleen Deeley, a lovely red-haired step dancer and melodeon player from California who played with us at the Milwaukee Irish Fest one year.

16. The Tarbolton/The Sailor’s Bonnet/The Longford Collector (reels)

This classic set was originally recorded by the Sligo fiddler Michael Colemann in 1934 and is commonly called The Tarbolton Set. "The Tarbolton" was originally a Scottish reel called both "The Tarbolton Lodge" and "Hatton Burn." It appeared in The Skye Collection of the Best Reels & Strathspeys, published in 1887, along with a number of other reels and jigs that have become a solid part of the Irish tradition.