Boys Of The Town: A Song History
"The Boys of the Town" is a title shared by at least two different Irish jigs in 6/8, both in G major, which the Traditional Tune Archive catalogues separately while noting that part of the first tune's second strain resembles the other.[1][2] The earlier-printed of the pair, also known as the Milltown (or Miltown) Jig, appears in P. W. Joyce's Ancient Irish Music (1890), in O'Neill's Music of Ireland (1903) and in The Dance Music of Ireland (1907).[1][3] Francis O'Neill's setting came from James O'Neill, a Chicago police sergeant and fiddler from County Down who assisted with assembling and transcribing that collection.[1]
Adriaen van Ostade, The Dance at the Inn, etching, 1652. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). A Dutch village dance, shown for its subject; it has no connection to the tune.
Recordings of that first tune include a 1938 performance by the Colmcille Ceilidhe Band[3] and a 1950s Copley 78 on which Paddy Cronin opened a medley of jigs with it.[1] In the 1970s the Clare concertina players Bernard O'Sullivan and Tommy McMahon recorded it for Topic as the Miltown Jig, and it later appeared on Matt Molloy's Stony Steps.[1] It is also on a Cape Breton fiddle album, the Rounder release The Beatons of Mabou (1978).[1]
The second jig of the name, sometimes called Down the Back Lane, was printed in volume 1 of the Roche Collection (1912) and later in The Northern Fiddler (1978) from the playing of fiddler John McKeown.[2][4] In 1994 Karen Tweed called it a "firm favourite" at Leeds sessions of the early 1990s.[2] Chris Droney recorded it in 1970, and Patrick Street included it on Street Life.[4]
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