Annotation:Jem the Miller

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JEM THE MILLER. Irish, Air (6/8 time). D Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. "Not so fast as a jig. This beautiful tune has a strong smack of Carolan at his best; though I do not think it was composed by him" (Joyce). However, Donal O'Sullivan (The Life, Times and Music of an Irish Harper, 1958) thought it sufficiently like Carolan's style to include it as an untitled air in his definitive work on the bard, and thought Joyce may have been put off by the title, which is certainly not an original one if the piece is Carolan's.

Source for notated version: Ned Goggin, a professional fiddler of Glenosheen, Co. Limerick, 1844–1850 [Joyce]. Collector P.W. Joyce's [1] (1827-1914) boyhood home was in Glenosheen, and Grogan was a primary source for music in the six years prior to 1850.

Printed sources: Joyce (Old Irish Folk Music and Songs), 1909; No. 163, pp. 82–83. O'Sullivan (The Life, Times, and Music of an Irish Harper), 1958; No. 176, p. 199 (untitled).

Recorded sources:




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