Annotation:Groves of Dromore (The)

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X:1 T:Groves of Dromore, The M:3/4 L:1/8 R:Air Q:"Tenderly" S:O'Neill - Music of Ireland (1903), No. 358 Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:G d>c | B2d2 cA | G2 AG FD/E/ | F2G2 GA | B2c2 de | =f2d2B2 | c4 dc | B2d2 cA | G2 AG FD/E/ | F2G2 GA | B2d2 (3cAG | A2G2G2 | G4 || GA | B2c2 de | =f2 gf ec | d3 cBG | B2c2 de | =f3 dcB | c4 dc | B2d2 cA | G2 AG FD/E/ | F2G2 GA | B2d2 (3cAG | A2G2G2 | G4 ||



GROVES OF DROMORE, THE (Tor-Coillte Druim-Moir). Irish, Air (3/4 time, "tenderly"). G Mixolydian. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. Irish music researcher Fr. John Quinn has found antecedents to O'Neill's air in two untitled tunes collected in 1858 from the manuscript of Frank Keane of Kilfenora, County Clare. According to Brendan Breathnach[1]Pronsias O’Cathain, alias Francis Keane of Clare, was married and living in Dublin (1868-’76) and serving as a lawyer’s clerk. Breathnach believes he was mostly self-educated, however, was skilled enough to have translated Paradise Lost into the Irish language! He also compiled a manuscript collection of literary stories and poems, commencing in the Autumn of 1844. He contributed a couple of songs and a double jig to Petrie's 1855 volume, the latter "a tune he had learned from his brother, one of the best professional fiddlers in the south of Ireland" [2]. Petrie mentions Keane's music book as the source for other tunes, and credited Keane with some eighty airs and dance tunes in Stanford/Petrie collection. Concludes Breathnach: "His contribution is particularly valuable for the dialogue songs formerly sung by women at comhar for spinning, knitting, sewing or other such co-operative work. It may be said that the versions in the complete collection betray Petrie’s uncontrollable itch for amending airs he received, transposing from sharp to flat keys, effecting rhythmical and even melodic changes"[3].


Additional notes
Source for notated version : - Chicago Police Sergeant James O'Neill, a fiddler originally from County Down and Francis O'Neill's collaborator [O'Neill].

Printed sources : - O'Neill (Music of Ireland: 1850 Melodies), 1903; No. 358, p. 62. Charles Villiers Stanford (The Complete Collection of Petrie's Irish Music), 1905; Nos. 179 & 180.






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  1. Brendan Breathnach, "Petrie and the Music of County Clare", [1]
  2. ibid.
  3. ibid.