John O'Conner: A Song History
"John O'Connor" (in Irish, Sean O Conchubhair) is a planxty in 6/8 time by the blind harper Turlough O'Carolan (1670–1738), and it ranks among his better-loved pieces.[1] Donal O'Sullivan gave it number 114 in his 1958 study Carolan: The Life and Times of an Irish Harper, and the tune keeps that number in later complete editions of Carolan's music.[1][2] O'Sullivan found that manuscript copies of Carolan's verses describe the subject as one of the O'Connors of Offaly, still a young bachelor at the time, but he could not identify the man more closely.[1]
John Egan, Portable Harp, Irish, 1819. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Made long after Carolan's death and shown for the instrument, not the tune.
The earliest known printing is in the Dublin collection of Carolan's melodies issued by John and William Neale around 1742, where it carries only the heading "Jigg."[1] The melody also circulated under other names, appearing as "Bob in the Bed" in John Johnson's Choice Collection of 200 Country Dances (1744) and as the garbled "Planks of Connaught" in Burk Thumoth's Twelve English and Twelve Irish Airs.[1] Edward Bunting also took it down from a harper, though sources differ on whether that was Denis Hempson or Rose Mooney.[1]
The tune remains a staple of Carolan repertoire, recorded by The Chieftains in the late 1970s and by Máire Ní Chathasaigh and Chris Newman on The Carolan Albums.[1][2]
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