Tuesday 16 October 2018
Tune of the Day: Delaney's Frolics
Traditional Irish reel
This tune was named for Chicago piper Barney Delaney, who was brother-in-law to the famed music collector Francis O'Neill. O'Neill was critical of Delaney, not for his piping ability, which he respected, but for his miserliness with tunes which O'Neill feared would be lost when Delaney died. “Delaney's Frolics” was first recorded about the year 1900 by piper Patsy Tuohey, on a privately made and issued cylinder recording. The first publication of the melody was in P.W. Joyce's Old Irish Folk Music and Songs (1909), under the title “The Dunboyne Straw-Plaiters”.