Annotation:O'Sullivan More's March (1)

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O'SULLIVAN MOR(E'S MARCH) [1]. AKA - "O'Sullivan's March (1)." AKA and see "Highlander's March (The)," "The Rebel's March," "Rock and a Wee Pickle Tow (A)," "Captain Collins" (Pa.), "One-Horned Cow (2) (The)," "Retreat (The)," "Pretender's March (The)," "Green Goose Fair (1)," "Glengariff," "Gogaí ó gog," "Páinneach na nUbh (1)" (Basket of Eggs (The)), "Montrose's March," "Scottish March," "Bob Ridley" (Pa.), "Bell Cow (1) (The)" (Pa.), "The Belling Tune" (Pa.), "Fifer's March" (Pa.). Irish, March (3/4 and 6/8 time). A Major (Roche): G Major (Tubridy). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB (Tubridy): AABBCCDDEEFF'GG' (Roche). The tune, note the Chieftains, is nowadays played more often as a jig, but is said to have been the march of the Kerry-based O'Sullivan Clan. However, Scottish antecedants are to be found in James Oswald's "Highlander's March (The)" and, nearly a century earlier, in England in Playford's "Montrose's March." O'Neill (1922) notes: "The above is an involved variant of a much simpler jig tune of identical name printed in Lynch's Melodies of Ireland (1845); and in O'Neill's Dance Music of Ireland (1907) (for which see "O'Sullivan's March (2)"). The strain is ancient. Following is a quatrain of a folk song sung to it in the editor's boyhood days:

There was an old woman tossed up in a blanket
Seventeen times as high as the moon;
What she was doing there I cannot imagine
But in her hand she carried a broom.

All of which is reminiscent of the days of witchcraft."

Tubridy's 6/8 version corresponds to the last parts of the Roche printing. See also County Cork cleric and uilleann piper James Goodman's "Dé do Bheatha ad’ Shláinte, Uí Shúilliobháin Mhóir" (Goodman mss., volume 1, p. 237), cognate with "O'Sullivan More's March (1)." See also note for "Páinneach na nUbh" for more on the tune-family.

A recording of "O'Sullivan's March" by Matt Molloy was used as theme for the 1995 film Rob Roy, starring Liam Neeson.

Additional notes
Source for notated version : - the Rice-Walsh manuscript, a collection of music from the repertoire of Jeremiah Breen, a blind fiddler from North Kerry [O'Neill] (compare this version with the Sliabh Luachra version in D. Curtin's ms.).

Printed sources : - Roche (Collection of Traditional Irish Music, vol. 2), 1912; No. 315, p. 51. O'Neill (Waifs and Strays of Gaelic Melody), 1922; No. 78. Tubridy (Irish Traditional Music, vol. 1), 1999; p. 6. Walsh (Session Tunes, vol. 2).

Recorded sources : - Claddagh CC24, "The Chieftains 7" (1977). Columbia 35612, "The Chieftains" (1977). Columbia Legacy CK 48693, "The Best of the Chieftains" (1986).

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