Annotation:Sporting Boys (1) (The)
X:1 T:The Sporting Boys [1] M:C| L:1/8 B:O'Neill's Music of Ireland. 1850 Melodies, 1903, p. 252, no. 1350 Z:François-Emmanuel de Wasseige K:G (BA)|G2 (BG) AcBA|G2 (BG) GEDE|G2 (BG) ABce|dBgB c2 (BA)| G2 (BG) AcBA|G2 (BG) GEDE|DEGB cBAe|dBgB c2|| BA|Bdgd edgd|Bdgd e2 dc|Bdgd edef|gedB c2 BA| Bdgd edgd|Bdgd e2 dc|Bdgd egfa|gedB c2|]
SPORTING BOYS [1], THE (Na buacaillide greannmar). AKA - "Sporting Boys of Portaferry (The)." AKA and see "Boys of Portaferry (The)," "Pullet (1) (The)." Irish, Reel. G Major (O'Neill): A Major (O'Connor). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (O'Connor, O'Neill/1850 & 1915): AABB' (O'Neill/Krassen). "Boys of Portaferry (The)" is a nearly identical tune, save for the ending of the first strain; both however were obtained by Francis O'Neill from Phillip J. O'Reilly. 'Phillip J. O'Reilly' was not mentioned in O'Neill's Irish Minstrels and Musicians (1913), nor was he present in the famous c. 1903 photograph of the Chicago Irish Music Club. However a member of the club was fiddler Philip J. O'Reilly, a native of County Cavan and a "good player [who] had many old manuscripts" [1906 letter from O'Neill to Alfred Percival Graves published in the Journal of the Irish Folk Song Society]. A 1930 census record indicates Phillip J. O'Reilly was born in 1865 in the Irish Free State and was living in Cook County, Chicago, Illinois. A version of the reel is contained in the late 19th/turn-of-the-20th century music manuscript in the possession of curate and fiddler biography:Rev. Luke Donnellan (1878-1952) under the title "Sporting Boys of Portaferry (The)." Portaferry is a small town in County Down, at the southern end of the Ards Peninsula.
