Annotation:Confederacy (2)

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CONFEDERACY [2]. English, Country Dance Tune (6/4 or 9/8 time). G Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. The melody appears in all four editions of London publisher John Young's Second Volume of the Dancing Master [1] (1710-1728), and in the first edition of John Walsh's Second Book of the Compleat Country Dancing-Master (1719), and in Walsh & Randall's New Country Dancing Master, 2nd Book (1710). In the later editions of Walsh's Second Book a new tune appears under the "Confederacy" title (see "Confederacy (1) (The)").

The title of the tune perhaps refers "to the period of Irish self-government between the Rebellion of 1641 and the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in 1649. During this time, two-thirds of Ireland was governed by the Irish Catholic Confederation, also known as the "Confederation of Kilkenny" (based in the city of Kilkenny)" [2]. However, it is likely to have been a more topical reference to the passage of the Acts of Union in 1706 (Scotland) and 1707 (Great Britain) the united the two countries as Great Britain (see other Dancing Master titles that refer to the union: "Union Jigg" and "Scotch Union").

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Young (Second Volume of the Dancing Master), 1710; p. 66.

Recorded sources:

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