Walsh's Hornpipe: A Song History

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"Walsh's Hornpipe" is associated with Sliabh Luachra, on the Cork-Kerry border, and is named for Phillip Walsh, a fiddler from Maol Mountain in County Kerry.[1] The Traditional Tune Archive describes Walsh as a blind, travelling player and notes that little is known of him.[1] In Irish the tune is Cornphíopa an Bhreathnaigh, and it has also been titled "Willy Walsh's," "Walshe's" and "Welsh's."[2] Walsh's name surfaces in the same circle of music elsewhere: the Irish Traditional Music Archive's guide to Breandán Breathnach's Denis Murphy material includes a reel card collected in County Kerry in 1966 that bears Phil Walsh's name alongside a note on Maol Mountain.[3]

A small glazed earthenware figure of a man in a green coat seated in a high-backed brown chair, playing a fiddle held at his chin

Astbury-Whieldon type, Man playing a fiddle, lead-glazed earthenware, ca. 1745–50. An English earthenware figure of a seated fiddler from about 1745-50, shown for Phillip Walsh, the travelling Kerry fiddler for whom the tune is named; the figure has no connection to Walsh or the tune.

One source for the tune was Denis Murphy (1912–1974), the Sliabh Luachra fiddler from Lisheen who was taught by Padraig Ó Caoimh.[1][4] According to the Tune Archive, Jackie Daly said it was a favourite of Murphy's that had come from Walsh; Breathnach's notation of Murphy's setting was printed in the second volume of Ceol Rince na hÉireann (1976), and Moylan later published the version of accordionist Johnny O'Leary in a 1994 collection of O'Leary's music.[1] The Tune Archive places it in A Mixolydian, while irishtune.info lists it as usually in A major, so sources differ on its mode.[1][2]

Recorded versions include those of Julia and Billy Clifford, Johnny O'Leary, Jackie Daly and Kathryn Tickell, and Kevin Burke and Mícheál Ó Domhnaill put it on Promenade with its two parts in the reverse of the order the Tune Archive transcribes.[1] irishtune.info indexes eight recordings made between 1977 and about 2012, among them Daly on concertina and Oisín Mac Diarmada on fiddle.[2] Phyllis Gaskins arranges it for the Galax dulcimer in Pig In A Pen (And Other Fiddle Ditties For Galax Dulcimer), where it closes her group of "A-ish" tunes in a 98-page Fingers Of Steel book that also looks at how the instrument is built and who shaped its sound.[5]

Our book that contains the song "Walsh's Hornpipe"

Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Walsh's Hornpipe".
  2. irishtune.info: "Walsh's Hornpipe".
  3. Irish Traditional Music Archive: "Chapter One: Denis Murphy | Breathnach Materials. CICD Cards and Tune Data".
  4. Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann: "Denis Murphy (1912-1974)".
  5. Fingers Of Steel: "Phyllis Gaskins, Pig In A Pen (And Other Fiddle Ditties For Galax Dulcimer)".
  6. Image: Astbury-Whieldon type, Man playing a fiddle, lead-glazed earthenware, ca. 1745–50. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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