Annotation:Timothy Downing

Find traditional instrumental music


Back to Timothy Downing


X:1 T:Timothy Downing M:C| L:1/8 R:Reel B:O'Neill's Music of Ireland. 1850 Melodies, 1903, p. 249, no. 1334 Z:François-Emmanuel de Wasseige K:Amin c2(Bc) (AB)G2|cde^f {a}gede|c2(Bc) (AB)G2|ea{b}ag efde| (3cdc (3BcB (3ABA G2|cde^f {a}gede|(3cdc (3BcB (3ABA G2|ea{b}ag (3efe d2|| aede g2(ag)|ed^cd efge|aede g2(ag)|ea{b}ag efde| aede g2(ag)|ed^cd e^fge|c2 cc d2 dd|ea{b}ag efde!D.C.!|]



TIMOTHY DOWNING (Teige Ua Donnaig). AKA and see "Downing's Reel," ," "First House in Connaught (The)," “Mama's Pet (2),” "Mamma's Pet," "Paddy's Pet," "Peata Mamai (1)." Irish, Reel. A Dorian. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (O'Neill/1850): AABB' (O'Neill/Krassen). A version of "Mama's Pet (2)." See also the related "Downing's Reel." O'Neill's title honors Timothy Downing, a gentleman farmer and neighbour to Francis O’Neill when he was a boy in County Cork. Downing taught O’Neill the rudiments of playing the flute. Griffith's Valuation records that Downing owned two houses he let to tenants[1].


Additional notes
Source for notated version : - Beamish [O’Neill]. "Timothy Downing" was collected by O'Neill from Abe Beamish who was from an adjoining parish to O'Neill's in County Cork. Despite this contiguousness, and despite the fact that they were contemporaries in age, the two men learned substantially different musical repertoires from their respective birthplaces. O'Neill recorded in Irish Folk Music: A Fascinating Hobby (1910):

Abram Sweetman Beamish, of Chicago, from whom we obtained the Buachaillin Ban, or the "Fairhaired Boy," "My Darling Asleep," and the "Knee-buckle" jigs, also the "Skibbereen Lasses," "Tie the Bonnet," "Dandy Denny Cronin" and the "Humors of Schull" reels, was a native of a parish adjoining the parish of Caheragh, in which the writer was born. Our ages are equal and we left Ireland about the same time, yet I never heard in my youth any of the tunes above named. The first and fifth only were known to the local musicians. Similarly most of my tunes were unfamiliar to Mr. Beamish.



Printed sources : - O'Neill (Krassen), 1976; p. 121. O'Neill (Music of Ireland), 1903; No. 1334, p. 249.






Back to Timothy Downing

0.00
(0 votes)




  1. Michael O'Malley, The Beat Cop:Chicago's Chief O'Neill and the Creation of Irish Music, Univ. of Chicago Press, 2022, Note 36, p. 292.