Annotation:Old Bush (1) (The)
X:1 T:The Old Bush [1] T:The Long Hills of Mourne N:printed settings include CRE I 105, O'Neill's DMI 781 N:("Captain Rock") and Petrie's "Complete Collection" no. 907 R: reel M:4/4 Z:Transcribed by Paul de Grae L:1/8 K:Dmix A2 GA cA ~A2 | d^cde fdec | A2 GA cAGA | dfef cAdc | A2 GA cAGB | Add^c defg | (3agf (3gfe fde^c | dfed cA A2 || eg ~g2 edcd | efge ~c3 d | eg ~g2 afge | dfed cA A2 | eg ~g2 ag ~g2 | fgfe defg | (3agf (3gfe fde^c | dfed cA A2 ||
OLD BUSH [1], THE (An tSean-Sceach). AKA and see "Bascadh Thomais Mhic an Bhaird," "Bush Reel (The)," "Captain Rock (2)," "Cnoic Fhada Mhughdhorna," "Five-Leaved Clover (2) (The)," "Long Hills of Mourne (The)," "Mourne Mountains (1)." Irish, Reel. A Dorian (O'Neill): A Dorian/Mixolydian (Harker/Rafferty, Mallinson, Taylor). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (O'Neill): AABB (Mallinson): AA'BB (Taylor): AA'BB' (Harker/Rafferty). Eamonn O'Doherty (1979) remarks that the title to this tune supposedly derives from the Irish custom of planting a special tree as a gathering place, quoting John Dunton (1674): "hither all the people resort with a piper on Sundays and Holydays in the afternoon, where the young folks dance till the cows come home." However, "Captain Rock (2)" may have been an earlier title (by which it appears in the older collections of Petrie (1880) and O'Neill (1903). Brian McNamara (notes to "A Piper's Dream", 2002) remarks that the tune was a favorite of Clare piper Willie Clancy. As "The Old Bush" it was recorded in 1960 on the All-Ireland Champions album by County Clare musicians Paddy Canny, P.J. Hayes and Peter O'Loughlin. Their source may well have been the version recorded under that name by the Ballinakill Céilí Band (East Galway) for Parlophone of London in July 1930 (the band's founding members were Anna Rafferty, Stephen Maloney, Tommy Whelan, Tommy Whyte, Jerry Maloney). It appears as "Captain Rock (2)" in O'Neill's 1903 collecton and, as an untitled reel, in George Petrie's mid-1880's collection (republished 1902-05, edited by Charles Villiers Stanford); the latter publication also cites a County Clare provenance. Petrie got his version from Frank Keane, a Kilfenora fiddler who, according to Breathnach, worked in a Dublin law office. Fiddler Mick Conneely says the tune still has County Clare associations in modern times. Breathnach included it in CRÉ I from piper Seán Potts under the likely mistaken title "Long Hills of Mourne (The)", which was O'Neill's name for the tune more usually called "Tom Ward's Downfall" nowadays. See also the related "Scolding Wife" and an untitled Highland in Feldman & O'Doherty's Northern Fiddler (1979), p. 109.
