The Kinard Polka: A Song History

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The Kinard Polka has a known author: it was composed by Martin Mulvihill, a fiddler from County Limerick who spent his later life teaching Irish music in New York.[1][2] The Traditional Tune Archive says the title refers to a townland near Glin, Mulvihill's home district,[1] and a pupil's essay in the National Folklore Collection's Schools' Collection places Kinard in the parish of Glin, in the barony of Shanid.[3] It is a two-part polka in G major, sometimes spelled "Kinnard."[1][2] Mulvihill had his first music lessons from his mother, a fiddle and concertina player, served in the Irish Army, and lived in England before settling in New York, where he taught at the Martin Mulvihill School in the Bronx and was named a National Heritage Fellow in 1984.[4]

Drypoint of a sailing ship moored at a low quay with figures on the shore and smaller boats across calm water.

Muirhead Bone, Moy, Ireland, drypoint, 1913. An Irish quayside, shown for the Ireland of the tune's composer, the County Limerick fiddler Martin Mulvihill; the drypoint shows Moy, not Kinard, and has no connection to the tune.

Mulvihill recorded the tune on Traditional Irish Fiddling from County Limerick, a Green Linnet album from around 1978 made with Mick Moloney, pairing it there with a polka called "Buddy Furey's."[1][2] He later printed it in his First Collection of Traditional Irish Music (1986), and it also appears in the 1996 tune book Music's the Very Best Thing.[1][2] In 2002 the trio Sliabh Notes, with fiddler Matt Cranitch, accordionist Dónal Murphy and guitarist Tommy O'Sullivan, included it on Along Blackwater's Banks.[1][2] For mountain dulcimer, Aaron O'Rourke sets it in DAD tuning in Irish Session Tunes, Volume 2, a Fingers Of Steel book of session jigs, reels and polkas whose free audio tracks play each tune in both fast and slow versions.[5]

Our book that contains the song "The Kinard Polka"

Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Kinard Polka".
  2. irishtune.info: "Kinard Polka".
  3. Dúchas.ie (National Folklore Collection, Schools' Collection): "My Home District," Baile Giolla tSionáin (B.), An Gleann.
  4. National Endowment for the Arts: "Martin Mulvihill".
  5. Fingers Of Steel: "Aaron O'Rourke, Irish Session Tunes, Volume 2".
  6. Image: Muirhead Bone, Moy, Ireland, drypoint, 1913. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

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