Kesh Jig: A Song History
The Kesh Jig is an Irish double jig in G major, normally played in two repeated parts, and it has gathered an unusually long list of names. The Traditional Tune Archive records it as the Kincora Jig, the Castle Jig, Kerrigan's Jig, the Mountaineers' March and Tear the Callies, among others[1], and Alan Ng's irishtune.info index adds spellings such as "Keash"[2]. The Tune Archive notes that Kesh is a village in County Fermanagh, close to Lough Erne[1], but in the sources consulted here no account of how the tune came by the name was found.
Irish Jig, from the National Dances series (N225) issued by Kinney Bros., commercial color lithograph, 1889. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). A tobacco trade card shown for the jig only.
According to the Tune Archive, the earliest printing appears to be in George Petrie's collection of the 1850s, under the title "Tear the Callies"[1]. The collector Francis O'Neill printed a version as "The Mountaineers' March" in The Music of Ireland (1903, No. 1030) and again in The Dance Music of Ireland (1907, No. 243)[3]. In a 1906 letter to Alfred Percival Graves, O'Neill recalled his former police partner Michael Raverty, a Tyrone man, softly whistling the tune to pass the hours of a night beat some thirty years before[3]. On record, accordionist Edward Herborn and banjo player James Wheeler cut a close relative of the tune for Columbia on 14 September 1916 as "The Rambler's Jig," issued on Columbia A2147[4][1].
The Tune Archive credits the Bothy Band, who recorded it on their 1975 album The Bothy Band, with repopularizing it under the "Kesh" title; the Boys of the Lough recorded it as the Kincora Jig[1]. Despite its long popularity in sessions, the Tune Archive adds that it is now often regarded as a "beginners tune"[1].
Find books with Kesh Jig for sale →