Lark On The Strand: A Song History

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"Lark on the Strand" is the name of two different Irish double jigs. According to the Traditional Tune Archive, the confusion goes back to a 1922 78 on the New Republic label by Sligo fiddler Michael Coleman and Michael Walsh: their medley opened with one "Lark on the Strand" and continued with a second jig labelled "The Primrose Vale," and in time players called both tunes by the first name.[1] The first is a G major jig whose A part wavers between G major and A Dorian; Breandán Breathnach printed it in Ceol Rince na hÉireann (1963) as a County Sligo setting and title that Sligo people regard as the original, though the Archive notes that the tune more often goes by other names, chiefly "The Old Woman Lamenting Her Purse" in today's sessions.[2] The Archive's entry under that title, which lists "Lark on the Strand" among its alternate names, traces it to George Petrie, who had it from James Fogarty of County Kilkenny as a Munster jig, and to No. 560 of Francis O'Neill's Music of Ireland (1903).[3] Alan Ng's irishtune.info indexes many recordings of this jig, from a 1926 concertina track by William Mullaly through Paddy Killoran, the Chieftains and Dervish.[4]

Watercolor of figures and a cart on a wide sandy beach with sailing boats under a stormy sky

Thomas Shotter Boys, Figures on a beach in northern France, watercolor and gouache over graphite, 1830. A beach in northern France, shown for the strand of the title; it is not in Ireland and has no connection to the tune.

The second jig is the one Breathnach printed in the same volume as "The Primrose Glen," the title he held to be correct; it is also known as "Wicky Sears."[1] The Archive says Paddy O'Brien recorded it on a 78 in 1954 and lists it on The Banks of the Shannon, a 1993 Green Linnet album with fiddler Séamus Connolly, while irishtune.info, which credits O'Brien on accordion, dates that recording to 1954 and treats it as the earliest of the 14 it indexes, a list that includes De Danann's Hibernian Rhapsody.[1][5]

For mountain dulcimer, a "Lark On The Strand" set in DAD tuning appears in Aaron O'Rourke's Irish Session Tunes, Volume 2, a Fingers Of Steel collection of more session jigs, reels and polkas sold with downloadable MP3 recordings, though the listing does not say which of the two jigs it is.[6]

Our book that contains the song "Lark On The Strand"

Sources

  1. Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation: Lark on the Strand (2)".
  2. Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation: Lark on the Strand (1)".
  3. Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation: Old Woman Lamenting Her Purse (The)".
  4. irishtune.info: "Lark on the Strand" (tune 1092).
  5. irishtune.info: "Lark on the Strand" (tune 1093).
  6. Fingers Of Steel: "Aaron O'Rourke, Irish Session Tunes, Volume 2".
  7. Image: Thomas Shotter Boys, Figures on a beach in northern France, watercolor and gouache over graphite, 1830. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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