Dingle Regatta: A Song History

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"Dingle Regatta" is a dance tune in G major from West Kerry, played in Ireland as a slide in 12/8 time and counted in English usage as a 6/8 jig.[1] The title covers two related settings, a two-part tune and a longer three-part tune that share the same opening strain.[2][3] In Kerry the music also went by other names, among them "Tom Billy's Favourite," "Denis Murphy's Slide" and "Quarry Cross."[2] According to guitarist Paul de Grae, the name "Dingle Regatta" comes from the composer Seán Ó Riada, who used the tune in his score for The Playboy of the Western World and made it the signature tune of his ensemble Ceoltóirí Cualann, the group from which the Chieftains grew.[1] Paddy Moloney later recalled that he had passed the tune to Ó Riada at a rehearsal with two tunes mixed up, though the blend still became the band's theme.[1]

Painting of a broad green valley with a small pond, a white cottage and distant mountains under a cloudy sky

Alexander H. Wyant, View in County Kerry, oil on canvas, ca. 1875. Shown for its subject; it has no connection to the song.

Some of the earliest recordings come from the Sliabh Luachra fiddlers: Denis Murphy recorded it in 1949, once with Pádraig O'Keeffe, and in 1952 Murphy, O'Keeffe and Julia Clifford were recorded playing it together.[2] That 1952 performance later appeared on the Topic album Kerry Fiddles (1977), where it is a two-part tune titled "Tom Billy's Favourite."[1] Seamus Ennis recorded it on the uilleann pipes around 1973.[2] The three-part setting has been recorded by céilí bands, and Johnny Reidy's Sliabh Luachra Céilí Band used it for a figure of the West Kerry Set.[3] Printed settings appear in collections including Matt Cranitch's The Irish Fiddle Book and Drew Beisswenger's Irish Fiddle Music from Counties Cork and Kerry.[2]

The tune has no words in the sources consulted here, but its third part is sometimes sung to nonsense syllables at sessions, a custom that Kevin Finnegan, formerly of the Liverpool Céilí Band, says started as a joke.[1] Mark Gilston includes it in Irish Tunes For Dulcimer, Volume 1, the first of two volumes of Irish tunes, with 41 tunes in all.[4]

Our book that contains the song "Dingle Regatta"

Sources

  1. Traditional Tune Archive: "Dingle Regatta".
  2. irishtune.info: "Dingle Regatta" (tune #511).
  3. irishtune.info: "Dingle Regatta" (tune #4520).
  4. Mark Gilston: "Irish Tunes For Dulcimer, Volume 1".
  5. Image: Alexander H. Wyant, View in County Kerry, oil on canvas, ca. 1875. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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