Annotation:Grave of Wolfe Tone (The)

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 GRAVE OF WOLFE TONE, THE (Uaim Uolfe Tone). Irish, Air (3/4 time, "plaintive"). G Dorian. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. The song was originally composed by Thomas Davis (1814-1845) as "Tone's Grave" (sometimes "Bodenstown Churchyard". Davis was leader of the Young Ireland movement, and his lyric first appeared in their newspaper The Nation. The title refers to the great Irish patriot and martyr Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763-1798) who was buried in Bodenstown, County Kildare, in the grave which had just received the body of his brother Matthew. The grave was unmarked until 1844, but when Davis visited the site around 1843 he found it guarded by a local blacksmith who would allow no one to set foot on it. However, even when a stone was erected it was slowly dismembered by enthusiastic pilgrims, who sought relics as remembrances. A new slab was erected by the Wolfe Tone Band, but that also shows signs of similar treatment.  Source for notated version:   Printed sources: O'Neill (Music of Ireland: 1850 Melodies), 1903; No. 456, p. 80.  Recorded sources:

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