Annotation:Baby Gavin

BABY GAVIN. AKA and see "Burke's [1]," "Charlie Mulvihill's (Jig) [1]," "Connie O'Connell's Jig [2]," "Coughlan's," "Gallagher's [2]," "Lad O'Beirne's (Jig)," "Matt Molloy's (Jig)," "The Short Road," "The Silver Vale." Irish, Jig. D Major. Standard tuning. AA'BB'. Printed under this title by New Jersey accordion player Luke O'Malley, once a student of John McGrath, who obtained the tune from the Gavin family of Ballina.

This jig was popularized by Andy McGann, Joe Burke and others who learned it in New York from Sligo fiddle legend James "Lad" O’Beirne. Longford/New York fiddle greatPaddy Reynolds told Don Meade that the New Yorkers' source was the fiddler and composer Ed Reavy, who picked it up from Neil Doherty, a Donegal fiddler in Philadelphia. Additional evidence of that connection is that the tune was recorded as "Neil Doherty’s Jig" by Donegal fiddler John Gallagher on Sean O’Riada’s Our Musical Heritage, a 1981 RTE three-LP collection of unaccompanied singers and musicians.

Printed source: O'Malley (Luke O'Malley's Collection of Irish Music, vol. 1), 1976; No. 103, pg. 52.