The Orange Rogue: A Song History
The Orange Rogue is known in the sources consulted here as an Irish set dance, usually written in 6/8 and taken more slowly than an ordinary jig, though one printed setting puts it in 3/4.[1] The Traditional Tune Archive notes that its opening strain is shared with the slide "The Trooper," and it points to an earlier, somewhat different version in the mid-nineteenth-century County Cork music manuscripts of James Goodman, a uilleann piper and Church of Ireland clergyman.[1] Francis O'Neill printed the tune in O'Neill's Music of Ireland (1903) and again in The Dance Music of Ireland (1907), crediting the 1903 setting to a player named Cronin.[2] The Tune Archive identifies him as Edward Cronin, a Chicago fiddler originally from Limerick Junction in County Tipperary.[1]
Adriaen van Ostade, Dance Under the Trellis, etching, 17th century. A village dance outside an inn, shown as a nod to the set dance; the etching is Dutch and has no connection to the tune.
The tune has stayed in print in later collections, among them Miller and Perron's Irish Traditional Fiddle Music (1977), Geraldine Cotter's tin whistle tutor and Mike Rafferty's repertoire as gathered in 300 Tunes from Mike Rafferty (2005).[1][2] Joe Burke, Andy McGann and Felix Dolan recorded it on The Funny Reel for Shanachie in 1979.[2] Janene Millen and Shawn McCurdy arrange it in DAD tuning for From Ditties To Dirges, a download that pairs the full book with a separate PDF of each piece, for sorting by title, and demonstration recordings of the arrangements.[3]
Sources
- The Traditional Tune Archive: "Orange Rogue (The)".
- Jane Keefer, Folk Music Index: "One O to Otz".
- Janene Millen and Shawn McCurdy: "From Ditties To Dirges".
- Image: Adriaen van Ostade, Dance Under the Trellis, etching, 17th century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.