Killarney Boys Of Pleasure: A Song History

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"The Killarney Boys of Pleasure" is an Irish reel whose Irish title is Gaigíní Chill Áirne; it is usually heard in E Dorian, though printed settings differ, with Brody and the Boys of the Lough giving it in A Dorian.[1][2] Despite the Kerry place name, several of the fiddlers linked with it in the sources consulted here are from Donegal, and it carries a string of other names, among them "Doherty's Reel," "Docherty's Reel," "The Gweebarra Bridge" and "The Newly Formed Habit."[1][2][3] The Traditional Tune Archive connects the Doherty titles with the celebrated Donegal fiddler John Doherty (1895–1980) or his brother Mickey, and it reports that Tommy Peoples learned the reel from Mickey Docherty and named it after him.[3] The Archive calls the Killarney name the more common one, especially in County Antrim, and credits that Antrim connection to Harker (2005), while it cites Caoimhín Mac Aoidh as saying that in Donegal the tune goes by "Ril a' Sean Nós," the old-style reel.[1][3]

Watercolor of green cliffs above a bay on Valentia Island, County Kerry, with crowds gathered on the slope

Robert Charles Dudley, The Cliffs, Foilhummerum Bay, Valentia, watercolor and gouache, 1865. The coast of County Kerry, Killarney's county, shown for the title only; the tune itself is associated with Donegal and Antrim players.

Peoples is credited with popularizing the tune, and the Fermanagh flute player Cathal McConnell got it from him; McConnell's band, the Boys of the Lough, recorded it as "Docherty's Reel" in 1973.[1][3] The printings found in the sources consulted here all date from the 1970s on, beginning with Bulmer and Sharpley's Music from Ireland (1974), which took its setting from Peoples, and including Breathnach's Ceol Rince na hÉireann, Volume 3 (1985), where the source is the Clare fiddler Seán Keane.[1][2] Keane had recorded it on his 1975 album Gusty's Frolics, and irishtune.info lists later versions from Liz Carroll, Altan on Blue Idol (2001), and Lúnasa.[1][2] The reel also has a place among the tunes in Irish Tunes For Dulcimer, Volume 2, Mark Gilston's follow-up book of Irish sheet music for the solo mountain dulcimer, with every tune arranged in DAD tuning.[4]

Our book that contains the song "Killarney Boys Of Pleasure"

Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Killarney Boys of Pleasure (The)".
  2. irishtune.info: "Killarney Boys of Pleasure".
  3. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Doherty's Reel (1)".
  4. Mark Gilston: "Irish Tunes For Dulcimer, Volume 2".
  5. Image: Robert Charles Dudley, The Cliffs, Foilhummerum Bay, Valentia, watercolor and gouache, 1865. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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