Sunday 13 March 2016
Tune of the Day: Paddy O'Snap
Traditional Irish slip jig
The earliest known reference to “Paddy O'Snap” is as a song in The Five Lovers, a comic opera by Tom Cooke staged in Dublin in 1806. Although Cooke is credited with composing the opera, whether he composed this melody is unknown, as he may well have adapted an existing air. The first printing of the tune was in Dublin publisher Smollet Holden's Collection of Old Established Irish Slow and Quick Tunes, issued the same year Cooke's opera was performed in the city.
Thomas Moore's song “Quick, we have but a second”, printed in his Irish Melodies, was set to the tune of “Paddy O'Snap”.