Annotation:As I Went Out Upon the Ice
AS I WENT OUT UPON THE ICE (Ag Dul amach ar an Leac Oighir dom). AKA and see "Green Cottage Polka (2) (The)," "Port Dálaig (2)," "Tralee Gaol". Irish, Polka (2/4 time). Ireland, Sliabh Luachra region of the Cork-Kerry border. A Dorian. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. Editors Moylan and Breathnach suggest a connection with the comic song "Taglioni.". Breathnach collected the following verse from Lisheen, Gneeveguilla, Co. Kerry fiddle player Denis Murphy in October 1966; Murphy sang it to the tune of this polka after playing it:
As I went out upon the ice,
The ice being rough and stony,
The ice it broke and down I went
And wet my tanlee ownee (Taglioni).
Alternative version:
One day as I went out to skate,
The ice was rough and stony;
And the ice it bent so in I went
And wet my Taglioni.'
Moylan additionally notes that the versions of the song he heard were sung to slide tunes. The polka is often played in a set with "Jimmy Doyle's Polka (1)" in the Sliabh Luachra tradition. See also the related "Dálaigh's Polka." Fr. John Quinn categorizes "As I went out upon the Ice" as a member of the large and varied "Haughs of Cromdale (The)" tune family and derivatives. See note for "Haughs of Cromdale" for more.
