Banish Misfortune: A Song History

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“Banish Misfortune” is an Irish double jig in three parts, most often played today in D Mixolydian.[1][2] It goes by many other names. The Traditional Tune Archive, following Brendan Breathnach, credits P. W. Joyce with printing it first, as “The Bag of Meal,” in his Ancient Irish Music of 1873, and notes that George Petrie’s collection titles it after Raftery’s poem “Máire Ní Éidhin.”[1] Clare piper Willie Clancy knew it as “The Shady Groves of Peamount” (or Piedmont), and “Round the Cart House” and “The Parish Girl” are among its other titles.[1][2]

Set of Irish union pipes with bellows, bag, chanter and drones

Uilleann Pipe, Irish, sheepskin, ivory, brass, wood and leather. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Shown for its place in Irish music; it has no connection to this tune.

Francis O’Neill printed the tune under three titles in his Dance Music of Ireland (1907): “Banish Misfortune,” “The Humours of Mullinafauna” and “Nancy Hines.”[1] His “Banish Misfortune” (No. 776 in The Music of Ireland, 1903, and No. 53 in the 1907 book) was the three-part version he collected in Chicago from Tipperary fiddler Edward Cronin, a setting he judged far better than the one in Petrie’s collection.[1][3] O’Neill also recorded Cronin on a wax cylinder in the early 1900s, which the Traditional Tune Archive describes as the earliest sound recording of the tune.[1] Sources differ on how O’Neill’s versions line up with today’s tune: irishtune.info files his “Banish Misfortune” as a separate but related jig, and matches the familiar version to O’Neill’s No. 845 (1903) and No. 106 (1907) instead.[4][2]

The Mixolydian form owes much of its popularity to The Chieftains, who opened their 1969 album Chieftains 2 with it.[1][2][3] Bobby Casey and Willie Clancy also recorded it in the 1960s and early 1970s.[2] In 1977, hammered dulcimer player Malcolm Dalglish and flute player Grey Larsen used it as the title of their June Appal album Banish Misfortune, which opens with the jig.[5][3]

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Sources

  1. Traditional Tune Archive: "Banish Misfortune (1)".
  2. irishtune.info (Alan Ng): "Banish Misfortune" (tune #113).
  3. Jane Keefer, Folk Music Index (ibiblio): "Banish Misfortune" (index page B02).
  4. irishtune.info (Alan Ng): "Banish Misfortune" (tune #7542).
  5. June Appal Recordings: "Banish Misfortune" (Malcolm Dalglish & Grey Larsen).