Boys Of Blue Hill: A Song History
The Boys of Blue Hill is a D-major tune shared by Irish and American fiddlers, though the two traditions treat it differently: Irish musicians know it as a hornpipe, while American players almost always take it as a reel.[1] Its origin is unknown, and the Traditional Tune Archive even suggests it may have a longer history in America than in Ireland.[1] The same archive points out how many places are called Blue Hill, from Massachusetts and Maine to Scotland, but the sources consulted here do not say which of them, if any, gave the tune its name.[1] The irishtune.info index also lists it under the Irish-language title Buachaillí an Chnoic Ghoirm.[2]
John Hill, View Near Hudson (No. 15 of The Hudson River Portfolio), aquatint printed in color with hand-coloring, 1822. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). American hill country, shown for its subject; it is not a view of any Blue Hill.
Ryan's Mammoth Collection (Boston, 1883) printed it as "The Boys of Oak Hill," a title also found in one of the Scottish Kerr collections, and the archive tentatively names "The Two Sisters" in Knauff's Virginia Reels (1839) as the earliest American printing.[1] Francis O'Neill included it in O'Neill's Music of Ireland, and irishtune.info dates the oldest source it indexes for the tune to 1903.[2] O'Neill also printed it in The Dance Music of Ireland (1907).[1] He learned it from George West, a seventeen-year-old fiddler, and reported that the Irish musicians of Chicago had not known the tune until then.[1]
Charles D'Almaine included it in a hornpipe medley around 1913, and William B. Houchens played it in his 1922 "Turkey in the Straw."[1] On August 12, 1927, in Chicago, Tommy Dandurand and his Gang recorded it as "The Beau of Oak Hill" at a Gennett session.[3] Many American fiddlers who did not learn the tune from Irish players know it by the Oak Hill title.[1] Among Irish players, Leo Rowsome and Frank Higgins recorded it in 1933,[1] and Pat Roche's Harp & Shamrock Orchestra followed in 1934.[2] When the irishtune.info rankings were consulted in October 2026, it was the hornpipe played by the most members of that site.[4]
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