Black Rogue: A Song History

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"The Black Rogue," in Irish An Rógaire Dubh, is a double jig heard at Irish sessions in D major, which irishtune.info also gives as D Mixolydian.[1] Alan Ng's irishtune.info lists further names for it, among them "Paddy McNicholas'," "Behind the Bush in the Garden" and "The Sack of Potatoes."[1] The same site keeps a separate entry for a G-major jig, "Around the Bench of Rushes," which has itself been called "The Black Rogue" as well as "Johnny McGill," and suggests comparing the two.[2] The Traditional Tune Archive instead lists "Paddy McNicholas'," "The Sack of Potatoes" and "Johnny McGill" as alternate titles of a single tune.[3] The Archive also catalogs a third, different G-major jig printed under the Black Rogue name in O'Farrell's Pocket Companion (c. 1808).[4]

Early nineteenth-century union pipes with bellows, green velvet bag and ivory-mounted drones and chanter

J. Sharp, Union Pipe, Aberdeen, Scotland, early 19th century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Shown for the instrument; it has no connection to the tune.

The Archive's account of that wider family says its origin is disputed between Irish and Scottish claims.[3] On the Scottish side, the tune is said to have been composed by Johnny McGill, a musician from Girvan in Ayrshire, while Francis O'Neill did not accept a Scottish origin.[3] The Archive traces the "Black Rogue" name to an old Irish-language song that is still sung to the melody, and it notes that Caoimhín Mac Aoidh links the tune to folklore about the Devil.[3] Its early trail runs through an untitled air in William Shield's comic opera Patrick in Prussia (London, 1786), "Rogue Err Duff" in O'Farrell's National Irish Music for the Union Pipes (1804), three entries in the mid-19th-century manuscripts of James Goodman, and later printings by Levey (1873) and in O'Neill's collections.[3]

The oldest recording of the session tune indexed by irishtune.info is a 1927 performance by Bowen's Irish Orchestra, which appears as "Behind the Bush in the Garden / The Black Rogue" on a 2022 compilation of restored 78s.[1][5] In New York in November 1928, O'Leary's Irish Minstrels recorded a jig titled "Black Rogue" for Columbia (33365-F) as the first figure of a dance set, though the discography entry does not show which melody it is.[6] The Archive also notes a 1928 78 by John Sheridan and his Boys, and it says the Donegal fiddlers Mickey and John Doherty were especially fond of the jig.[3] It remains a session staple: more than 280 irishtune.info members list it as a tune they play, and the recordings indexed there include ones by Michael Gorman (1968), Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill, and Liz Carroll.[1]

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Sources

  1. irishtune.info (Alan Ng): "Black Rogue".
  2. irishtune.info (Alan Ng): "Around the Bench of Rushes".
  3. Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Black Rogue (1)".
  4. Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Black Rogue (2)".
  5. irishtune.info (Alan Ng): "Let Her Go Boys!" (album).
  6. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Columbia matrix W110047. Black rogue : Jig / O'Leary's Irish Minstrels".