Annotation:Marine (The)

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MARINE (JIG), THE. AKA and see "Braes of Argyll (The)," "I’ll Paddle My Own Canoe," "Paddle Your Own Canoe." Irish. Ireland, County Donegal. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The Irish name for the Scottish tune "Braes of Argyll (The)." The Marine is also a dance, which Caoimhin Mac Aoidh (1994) states was invented by an Irishman, James Fitzgerald, a popular resident dancing master at the Marine Ballroom, Edinburgh (from which the dance derives its name) in the 1880's. The dance is apparently forgotten (though it was said to be a couple dance involving side-to-side and face-to-face patterns), but versions of the tune live on in Donegal fiddling tradition. Fintan Vallely, writing in his book Blooming Meadows (1998), states that Fitzgerald's tune was learned by migrant Donegal workers and brought home to the Croaghs (Blue Stack Mountains) where it entered fiddle tradition.

The alternate titles "I’ll Paddle My Own Canoe" or "Paddle Your Own Canoe" is from a song verse that is also sung to the slide "If I Had a Wife (2)."

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There is an excellent discussion of the dance and tune at thesession.org [1]