Annotation:Castleconnell Lasses
X:1 T:Castleconnell Lasses M:C L:1/8 R:Reel S:Joyce - Old Irish Folk Music and Songs (1909) Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:D d2 fd a2 fd|d2 fd ecAc|d2 fd adfd|ecAc cBB2|d2 fd adfd| d2 fd ecAc|defg agaf|ecAc cB B2|| fBdB f2 dB|ABcd ecAc|f2 dB fBdB|ecAc cB B2| fBdB fBdB|ABcd ecAc|dcdB ceaf|ecAc cBB2||
CASTLECONNELL LASSES. Irish, Reel. D Major ('A' part) & B Minor ('B' part). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. Castleconnell is near the city of Limerick. It is mentioned in the memoirs of blind harper Arthur O'Neill (1734-1818), originally from County Tyrone, who as a young man first toured Ireland in the late 1750's. "I met a Counsellor Macnamara, then Recorder of Limerick, who invited me to his house about five miles distant, called Castleconnell, where I was very well received. He had a house in Limerick in which was the skeleton of Brian Boru's harp, and in consequence of the national esteem I held for its owner I new strung it and then tuned it. It was made of cedar. It was not strung for upwards of two hundred years before; which when done Counsellor Macnamara requested me to strap it around my neck and play it through that hospitable city, which I agreed to do, being then young and hearty and had no care, as at that period I was not very rebunxious among the women....I was followed by a procession of upwards of five hundred people, both gentle and simple, as they seemed to be every one imbibed with a national spirit when they heard it was the instrument that our celebrated Irish monarch played upon before he leathered the Danes at Clontarf out of poor Erin."