Boy In The Gap: A Song History
The Boy in the Gap is an Irish reel in D, listed by irishtune.info in D major with a 24-bar ABB form.[1] Players' settings move between D major and D Mixolydian, and one variant is pitched in E Mixolydian.[1][2] The flute player Paddy Taylor added a third strain, and that three-part form is now the one most heard in sessions, although Bernard Flaherty's Trip to Sligo (1990) records that County Sligo musicians had played it in two parts until fairly recently.[3] Its other names include An Buachaill sa Bhearna, Boys in the Gap, and The Boys of Cappoquin.[1]
Lord Otho Fitzgerald, The Meeting of the Waters, Killarney, albumen silver print, 1854. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). An Irish river scene, shown for its setting; it has no connection to the tune.
According to the Traditional Tune Archive, Canon James Goodman, a clergyman and uilleann piper from County Cork, noted a version titled "The Farmer's Lass" in his manuscript collection of the mid-1800s, and the tune was later printed in Ryan's Mammoth Collection (1883).[3] It also appears as "Boy in the Gap" in the Rev. Luke Donnellan's collection, published in the Journal of the County Louth Archaeological Society in 1909.[3] Francis O'Neill printed it as The Boys of Cappoquin, in Music of Ireland (1903, No. 1364) and again in The Dance Music of Ireland (1907, No. 617).[4] Among the earliest recordings listed are a disc of about 1922 by John McKenna on whistle with fiddler Barney Conlon, and a 1929 recording by McKenna with James Morrison.[1]
Paddy Moloney piped it on the Chieftains' album The Chieftains, and Pat Mitchell transcribed the piper Willie Clancy's version in The Dance Music of Willie Clancy (1993).[1][3] The Boys of the Lough recorded it on their 1973 album The Boys of the Lough, and later versions come from fiddler Tommy Peoples and the band Danú.[1][3]
Find books with Boy In The Gap for sale →