Palmer's Gate: A Song History

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"Palmer's Gate" is an Irish reel of thirty-two bars in two repeated strains, usually played in E Dorian.[1] Both Alan Ng's tune index and the Traditional Tune Archive credit it to Joe Liddy, a fiddler and composer from County Leitrim.[1][2] The Archive also lists two other names for it, "Brady's" and "Lavery's."[2]

Etching of a woman and children at a farmhouse doorway, with pigs in the yard

Charles Jacque, Gate to the Farm, etching, ca. 1850. A farmyard doorway rather than a gate, shown for the tune's title.

Liddy was born at Killargue into a musical family and came to be known as "The Leitrim Fiddler."[3] In the 1930s he formed the Belhavel Trio with his brother Tommy and Ned Gorman, a group that cut three 78s and was often heard on Radio Éireann.[3] He died in 1992.[2][3] The tune was printed in his 1981 collection The Leitrim Fiddler: 103 Tunes Composed by Joe Liddy, the earliest dated source in Ng's index.[1][2]

Recordings include Danú's self-titled 1997 album, late-1990s albums by Dervish and Sliabh Notes, and a later one by fiddler Martin Hayes and guitarist Dennis Cahill.[1][2] Aaron O'Rourke includes it in Irish Session Tunes, Volume 2, a collection of jigs, reels and polkas commonly played at Irish sessions, arranged for mountain dulcimer in DAD tuning, published by Fingers Of Steel.[4]

Our book that contains the song "Palmer's Gate"

Browse more tunes like this: Celtic & Irish Dulcimer Tab

Sources

  1. irishtune.info (Alan Ng): "Palmer's Gate".
  2. Traditional Tune Archive: "Palmer's Gate".
  3. Leitrim DOC: "Joe Liddy – Fiddler & Composer".
  4. Fingers Of Steel: "Aaron O'Rourke, Irish Session Tunes, Volume 2".
  5. Image: Charles Jacque, Gate to the Farm, etching, ca. 1850. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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