Annotation:Mervyn Pratt

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MERVYN PRATT. Irish, Air or Planxty (6/8 time). F Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. Composed by blind Irish harper Turlough O'Carolan (1670-1738). The tune was printed in John Lee's A Favourite Collection of the so much admired old Irish Tunes, the original and genuine compositions of Carolan, the celebrated Irish Bard. (Dublin, 1780, p. 25) as "Mervyn Spratt Esq.". It also appears in the Thompson's Hibernian Muse (London, 1786).

Donal O'Sullivan (1958) identified the person of the title to be Mervyn Pratt, fifth son of Joseph Pratt of Cabra, County Cavan, who married (in 1704) Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Coote of Coote Hill, also County Cavan. Pratt became an M.P. for Cavan and High Sherrif in 1722, and he died in 1751. His brother, Dr. Benjamin Pratt, was Provost of Trinity College, Dublin.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Complete Collection of Carolan's Irish Tunes, 1984; No. 156, p. 106. O’Sullivan (Carolan: The Life, Times and Music of an Irish Harper), 1958; No. 156, p. 184. Samuel, Anne & Peter Thompson (The Hibernian Muse), London, 1787; No. 98, p. 62.

Recorded sources:

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