Annotation:Pay the Reckoning
X:1 T:Pay the Reckoning M:6/8 L:1/8 R:Jig B:O'Farrell - Pocket Companion for the Union Pipes, vol. 1 (c. 1805, p. 17) Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:G G2e dBG|BAB dBG|G2e dBG|A2 A BGE| G2e dBG|BAB def|gfe dcB|ABA BGE:| |:gbg faf|ege dcB|gbg faf|g2a bge| gbg faf|ege def|gfe dcB|ABA BGE:|]
PAY THE RECKONING (Íoc an Reicneáil). AKA and see "Bobbing for Eels," “Bottle of Punch (The),” “Bowl of Punch (The),” "Butchers of Bristol (1) (The)", “Dairymaid (6) (The)," "Fishing for Eels," "Humors of Milltown (2) (The)," "Jackson's Bottle of Brandy," “Jackson's Jug of Punch,” “Jug of Punch (5),” "Old Man's Jig (The),” “Sligo Bay,” “Tommy Peoples' Jig.” Irish, Double Jig (6/8 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. Breathnach (1963) remarks that the tune was called “Jackson's Bottle of Punch” in a music broadsheet published in about 1785 by Eliz. Rhames, although Breathnach thinks it unlikely to be a composition of the 18th century gentleman composer Walker ‘Piper’ Jackson, of the townland of Lisdaun, parish of Ballingarry, Aughrim, County Limerick. Breathnach took the name for the tune by its title in O’Farrell’s c. 1805 Pocket Companion for the Irish or Union Pipes (“Pay the Reckoning,” p. 17). "Pay the Reckoning" is in the c. 1841 Henry Hudson manuscript collection (No. 329). Hudson was a Dublin dentist and an early collector, and was music editor of The Citizen or Dublin Monthly Magazine from 1841-1843. Hudson also noted the jig was ”Supposed by Jackson.” 19th century Irish violinist R.M. Levey called the jig “The Bottle of Punch,” while mid-19th century County Cork cleric James Goodman entered it as “Groom” or “Larry Grogan” in his music manuscript collection. In O’Neill's publications various versions of the jig are printed under the titles “Bobbing for Eels, “Fishing for Eels,” “Jackson's Jug of Punch,” and “Jackson's Bottle of Brandy.” South Sligo fiddler James Morrison (1894-1947) recorded it in duet with piper Tom Ennis in New York in May, 1922, under the title “Sligo Bay.”
The first strain is similar to the Scottish "Campbells are Coming (1) (The)," and the Irish jig may be a cognate or a derivative of the Scottish tune, which predates it in publication (both tunes were published by O'Farrell, however).
