Corney Drew's Hornpipe

 CORNEY DREW'S HORNPIPE (Crannciuil Crotuir Uí Draeda). AKA and see "Fitzgerald's Hornpipe [2]." Irish, Hornpipe. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB (O'Neill): AA'BB' (Breathnach). This tune is associated with the blind Irish fiddle master Corney Drew, of the Sliabh Luachra region of the Cork/Kerry border. Caoimhin Mac Aoidh remarks that there is "strong evidence" that Drew learned from a fiddle player named O'Grady who moved to the region from Tipperary. Drew in turn influenced area musicians Din Tarrant and Tadhg "an asal" Buckley, who all played a "house dance" style, less ornamented with less slurring than the other famous Sliabh Luachra style typified by fiddler Pádriag O'Keeffe (1887-1963) and his students Denis Murphy and Julia Clifford. Donal Hickey, however, in his book on Sliabh Luachra musicians Stone Mad for Music, suggests O'Keeffe was much influenced, albeit indirectly, by Drew. Pádriag's mother was Margaret O'Callaghan, from Doon, Kiskeam, Cork, and it was from her family that he inherited much of his music. Margaret's brother Cal was an excellent fiddler and greatly influenced the young O'Keeffe. The O'Callaghans, says Hickey, got much of their music from Corney Drew, "and unusual tunes which Pádriag played in later life came from Drew, who had inherited music from the late 18th and early 19th centuries." The alternate title "Fitzgerald's Hornpipe," by which title the melody appears in the music manuscripts of Church of Ireland cleric James Goodman (1828-1894), may refer (remarks Paul de Grae) to William Fitzgerald of Conrea, Ballydesmond. Fitzgerald was a travelling fiddle master and a contemporary of Corney Drew, who wrote a music manuscript dating from 1866, after which he emigrated to America and was lost to history. His manuscript survived in Ireland, however (Dan Herlihy has a copy, Paul says). Source for notated version: piper Liam Ó Floinn (Kildare) [Breathnach/Man & his Music]; "Hartnett," probably referring to Chicago Police Sergeant Michael Hartnett whom O'Neill identified in Irish Minstels and Musicians as a dancer originally from the Sliabh Luachra region who "was born and brought up within a radius of a dozen miles or so of where the Counties of Kerry, Cork and Limerick come together" [O'Neill]. A variant of "Corney Drew's Hornpipe" appears in Joyce's Old Irish Folk Music and Songs under the title "Dwyer's Hornpipe" with the note: "This was a great favourite as a dance tune, and I learned it in boyhood from pipers and fiddlers" (Joyce was born in 1827 in Glenosheen, Limerick, near the Cork border). Printed sources: Breathnach (The Man & his Music), 1996; No. 6, p. 104. O'Neill (Krassen), 1976; p. 200. O'Neill (Music of Ireland: 1850 Melodies), 1903; No. 1713, p. 313. O'Neill (Dance Music of Ireland: 1001 Gems), 1907; No. 903, p. 155.

X:1 T:Corney Drew's Hornpipe M:4/4 L:1/8 R:Hornpipe S:Breathnach (1996) K:G G2 GE GABd|edef (3gfe df|edef (3gfe dB|AGAB (3cBA GE| G2 GE GABd|edef (3gfe d2|(3efg dc BGAF|1 G2 GF GEDE:|2 G2 GF G2|| (3bag af ge d2|(3efg dc BGAF|G2 GF G2:|2 AGAB BAGE| G3E GABd|edef (3gfe d2|(3efg dc BGAF|G2 GF GEDE||
 * Bd|g3b aaga|(3bag af gedg|edef (3gfe dB|1 BAAG A2 Bd|g3b aaga|

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