Annotation:Bloom of Youth (The)
BLOOM OF YOUTH, THE (Blat Na h-Oige). AKA and see "Tansey's Favourite (1)," "Dr. Taylor," "Downshire Reel (1) (The)," "Gardiner's Favourite (1)," "J.J. Gardiner's." Irish, Reel (cut time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (O'Neill): AA'BB' (Songer). The reel may have derived from the Scottish "Countess of Sutherland (1)" and "Glasgow Ladys/Glasgow Ladies Reel]]" (Aloys Felischmann), and while there are points of correspondence and a general melodic contour, there are also enough differences to suggest a comparison but not a cognate relationship. It does not appear under the title "Bloom of Youth" in collections older than O'Neill's. O'Neill's source (as recorded in his Irish Minstrels and Musicians, 1913), Robert Lawson, inherited an exquisite set of uilleann pipes from piper (and Chicago police sergeant) James Early. The pipes had been made by a famous pipe-maker, Egan, and had belonged to a Kerry piper named 'Dan' O'Keeffe (1821-1899). Unfortunately, Lawson was not the best care-taker of the valuable instrument, as he had them stolen from him after he had been fed 'knock-out drops' in a dive in New York City's Bowery section.
An influential recording was made on 78 RPM for the Decca label by flute player John McKenna in 1934, the same year that fiddler Paddy Killoran recorded it in New York under the title "Tansey's Favourite (1)." The group Planxty recorded the reel in 1979 as "Lucky in Love," a title that belongs to a similar but different tune.
