Annotation:Aggie Whyte's Reel (1)

Find traditional instrumental music

Back to Aggie Whyte's Reel (1)


AGGIE WHYTE'S (REEL) [1]. AKA - “Aggie White’s.” AKA and see "Aggie Whyte's Chattering Magpie," “Father Ahearn's,” "Paddy Kelly's Reel (1)." Irish, Reel. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. Biography:Aggie Whyte was a fiddler player from Ballinakill, County Galway, a daughter of Tommy Whyte, who founded the Ballinakill Traditional Dance Players (Ceili Band). Aggie also toured and recorded with the Ballinakill group, as well as in Joe Burke's Leitrim Ceili Band, was a founding member of the Tulla Ceili Band and, at the Fleadh in Cavan in 1954, became the first woman to win the All-Ireland Senior Fiddle title. She was also an Oireachtas Gold Medalist in 1958. East Galway flute player Jack Coen told New York musician Don Meade that Whyte acquired this tune from its composer, fiddler Paddy Kelly. Whyte spent much time in New York, including a season playing at Ralph Kelly's Brookside Inn in the Catskills resort town of East Durham.

Source for notated version: fiddler John Loughran [Feldman & O'Doherty]

Printed sources: Black ("Music's the Very Best Thing"), 1996; No. 342, p. 182. Breathnach (CRÉ II), 1976; No. 186, pg. 98 (appears as "Gan ainm (untitled)" from "Mrs. S. Ryan," i.e., Aggie Whyte, whose husband was schoolteacher Séamus [Jimmy] Ryan). Feldman & O'Doherty ("The Northern Fiddler"), 1979; p. 242a (appears as untitled tune). Mulvihill, "First Collection"), 1986.

Recorded sources: Green Linnet SIF-1110, Paddy Reynolds - "My Love is in America: The Boston College Irish Fiddle Festival" (1991). Green Linnet SIF-1026, James Kane - "Roll Away the Reel World" (as "Father Ahearn's"). Gael Linn CEFC 149, Mary Bergin - Feadóga Stáin 2 (1989).




Back to Aggie Whyte's Reel (1)