Annotation:Reilly of the White Hill

Back to Reilly of the White Hill

REILLY OF THE WHITE HILL. Irish, Reel. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB (Miller): AA’BB’ (Reavy). Claimed as a composition of County Cavan/Philadelphia fiddler and composer Ed Reavy (1898-1988) in the book published by his son Joe. Reilly, according to Joe's notes on the tunes, was one of the “White Hill people” from the region north of the Reavy family farmland in Cavan. Though his first name is not remembered, he himself had a reputation as a wild volatile man, wont to cheat at cards.

The tune was recorded as "The Maid in the Dawn" by Sligo fiddler Joseph Tansey on a 1926 Victor disc, and in 1931 as "The Rose in the Garden" by James Morrison with the Erin's Isle Ballroom Orchestra. Perhaps Tansey and Morrison got it from Reavy, but it is perhaps more likely that Joe Reavy was mistaken in assigning authorship to his father.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Miller (Fiddler’s Throne), 2004; No. 240, p. 146. Reavy (The Collected Compositions of Ed Reavy), No. 20, p. 21.

Recorded sources: Victor 79201-B (78), 1926, Joseph Tansey (as "The Maid in the Dawn"). Columbia 33475-F, 1931, Erin's Isle Ballroom Orchestra. Rounder Select 6008 (LP) Ed Reavy, 1979, played by button accordionist Billy McComiskey.