Egan's Polka: A Song History
"Egan's Polka" is a title shared by more than one Irish polka, and Alan Ng's tune index lists "Egan's" among the names of two distinct 32-bar D-major tunes.[1][2] One is better known as "Peg Ryan's" or the "Kerry Polka."[1] The Traditional Tune Archive describes Peg Ryan as a musician from Murroe in east County Limerick, gives the tune in G, and adds that it is also widely played in D.[3] It was printed as "Egan's" in Bulmer and Sharpley's Music from Ireland in 1976 and appeared on the Chieftains' album Chieftains 5 in 1975.[4] More than 300 members of irishtune.info report playing it, and it appears in session collections such as Mallinson's 100 Vital Irish Session Tunes.[1]
Charles Wheatstone, Concertina, palisander, leather, paper, ivory, ca. 1862. Shown for its subject; it has no connection to the song.
The other tune is the "Scartaglen Polka," which turns up on several albums of Sliabh Luachra music; the earliest source in Ng's index is a 1949 recording by the fiddler Denis Murphy.[2] The Traditional Tune Archive, which files it as "John Egan's Polka," profiles the Sligo-born flute player John Egan (1903–1989), who settled in Dublin and in 1950 helped found the St. Mary's traditional music club in Church Street; it also reports an earlier version called "The Black Horse Polka" in a Leitrim manuscript from around 1900.[5] Ng's index dates a flute recording of the tune by John Egan to about 1964.[2]
Mark Gilston includes a tune under this title in Irish Tunes For Dulcimer, Volume 2, a collection of Irish melodies arranged for solo mountain dulcimer in DAD tuning.[6]
Sources
- irishtune.info: "Peg Ryan's".
- irishtune.info: "Scartaglen Polka".
- Traditional Tune Archive: "Peg Ryan's".
- Traditional Tune Archive: "Egan's Polka (1)".
- Traditional Tune Archive: "John Egan's Polka (2)".
- Mark Gilston: "Irish Tunes For Dulcimer, Volume 2".
- Image: Charles Wheatstone, Concertina, palisander, leather, paper, ivory, ca. 1862. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.