Annotation:Lucy Farr's Barn Dance

---

---

X:1 T:Lucy Farr's - Barn Dance R:barndance S:Linda Hickman: Galvin School of music weekend, Nov 29th, 1997 Z:Mike Hogan M:C| L:1/8 K:G D|:G2 G2 G2 G2|GABG E2 D2|B2 B2 B2 B2|BcdB A3 A| BcdB G2 G2|GABG E2 D2|DEGA BcdB|A2 G2 G4:|| |:BcdB G2G2|GABG E2 D2|DEGA BcdB|B2 A2 A3 A| BcdB G2G2|GABG E2 D2|DEGA BcdB|A2 G2 G4:||

---

LUCY FARR'S. AKA and see "Eight Step Polka." Irish, English; Barndance (whole time). B Flat Major: G Major (Prior). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The namesake polka is from the late Galway-born (Baunyknave, Ballinakill) fiddler Lucy (nee Kirwan) Farr (1911-2003), who lived in England from the year 1935, where she moved to take up a career in nursing. Farr, like her contemporary Aggie Whyte, was a representative of the East Galway fiddling tradition, and can be heard playing the tune on "Heart and Home," an archival recording from 1991-1992. In London she was a nurse by profession, and was a member of the Four Courts Ceili Band and the Rakes. The tune is also played in other keys; Mairtin O'Connor plays it in D Major.

Lucy Farr

Researcher Conor Ward finds what appears to be a cognate tune in the c. 1930 music manuscript from the Duffy family of Legga, Moyne, County Longford, as the first figure in a set of quadrilles labelled "Spanish Scotish [sic]." A very similar tune is the "Eight Step Polka" from County Donegal, and, albeit much more distanced, the Shetland Islands "Seven Step Polka (Da)."

0.00

(0 votes)

---