Banks Of Lough Gowna: A Song History

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The tune indexes consulted here classify “The Banks of Lough Gowna” as a double jig, usually written in A minor, although some printed settings put it in B minor.[1][2] irishtune.info gathers several other names for it, among them “The Shores of Lough Gowna,” plain “Lough Gowna,” “The Slopes of Sliabh Luachra” and “The Ball of Ballinafeidh.”[2] The Traditional Tune Archive observes that its second strain resembles the second strain of one of the jigs called “Geese in the Bog.”[1] Lough Gowna is a lake on the Longford–Cavan border, mostly on the Longford side,[3] and it is where the River Erne rises.[4] Neither tune index consulted here explains how the jig came by the lake’s name.[1][2]

Color photograph of a calm lake bordered by trees and green fields under a pale sky

Upper Lough Erne, County Fermanagh, Ireland, photochrom print, between ca. 1890 and ca. 1900. Library of Congress. No known restrictions on publication. Upper Lough Erne lies on the river that rises in Lough Gowna; this is not Lough Gowna itself.

Francis O’Neill printed the tune as No. 1060 in O’Neill’s Music of Ireland (1903) and as No. 264 in The Dance Music of Ireland (1907), the earliest sources the indexes record.[1][2] Later printings include Mitchell’s The Dance Music of Willie Clancy (1993), after the west Clare piper Willie Clancy (1918–1973), and DeMarco and Krassen’s A Trip to Sligo (1978).[1][2] The Traditional Tune Archive describes one notated setting, credited to DeMarco and Krassen, as a composite of an old duet recording by Paddy Killoran and Paddy Sweeny and a more recent one by John Vesey.[1]

In 1965 accordionist Joe Burke, fiddler Andy McGann and pianist Felix Dolan recorded it, as “The Banks of Lough Gamhna,” on A Tribute to Michael Coleman.[1][2] Flute player Seamus Tansey included it on The Best of Seamus Tansey around 1970 (the indexes differ by a year),[2][5] and Patrick Street recorded it as “The Shores of Lough Gowna” on their 1986 album Patrick Street.[2][6] Other recordings include Ronan Browne and Peter O’Loughlin’s The South West Wind and Solas’s The Words That Remain,[1][2] and the tune is printed in modern session collections such as Cranitch’s Irish Session Tunes: The Red Book and Mallinson’s 100 Essential Irish Session Tunes.[1][2]

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Sources

  1. Traditional Tune Archive: "Banks of Lough Gowna (1) (The)".
  2. irishtune.info (Alan Ng): "Banks of Lough Gowna" (tune #117).
  3. AskAboutIreland (ENFO): "Longford: Lakes".
  4. Encyclopaedia Britannica: "River Erne".
  5. Traditional Tune Archive: "Shores of Lough Gowna".
  6. Mainly Norfolk: "Patrick Street".