Father Kelly: A Song History

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The reel most players mean by "Father Kelly's" is a G-major tune composed by Fr. P. J. Kelly, whose own name for it was "The Rossmore Jetty"; some sources also give it as "Speed the Plough."[1][2] Kelly (1925–2006) played piano accordion and was ordained a Columban priest in 1950; he belonged to the first group of Columban missionaries sent to Fiji, where he spent 18 years.[1][3] The Columbans call him a native of Woodford, County Galway, while the Traditional Tune Archive connects him with both Graigue and Woodford in that county.[1][3] The Archive explains that the jetty was a pier on the Shannon near Woodford from which Kelly swam as a child, and it cites Fr. Charlie Coen, another Woodford man, on Kelly's habit of naming tunes after places around the town.[1] Many of his compositions were gathered in Fr Kelly's Favourites, a 33-tune book published by the Far East magazine in 2007.[3]

Late nineteenth-century button accordion with carved wooden fretwork and mother-of-pearl buttons

Accordion, possibly Belgian, ca. 1890. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Shown for the instrument; it has no connection to the tune.

Bulmer and Sharpley's Music from Ireland, volume 3, printed this reel as "Father Kelly's No. 1," and the Archive also files Kelly's "Ben Hill," named for a spot near Rossmore, under the alternative title "Father Kelly's Reel (2)."[1][4] irishtune.info also lists a separate G-major reel called "Father Kelly's" (or "Over the Bog Road"), noting that it is credited to Kelly only in Breathnach's Ceol Rince na hÉireann 5 and is absent from Fr Kelly's Favourites.[5][2]

The earliest recording of the Rossmore Jetty tune indexed by irishtune.info dates from around 1976, by the Armagh Pipers' Club, and John and Phil Cunningham included it on Against the Storm (1980).[2][1] It has become a standard session reel, listed by some 345 irishtune.info members, and it appears in tunebooks such as 100 Essential Irish Session Tunes and The Portland Collection.[2][1]

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Sources

  1. Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Father Kelly's Reel (1)".
  2. irishtune.info (Alan Ng): "Father Kelly's".
  3. Columban Missionaries Ireland (Fr Alo Connaughton): "Fr Kelly's Jigs and Reels".
  4. Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Ben Hill (1)".
  5. irishtune.info (Alan Ng): "Father Kelly's" (Over the Bog Road).