Sunday 18 October 2020
Tune of the Day: Port Gordon
Traditional Scottish/Irish air
This harp air is said to have been composed for a Scottish patron by early 17th century Ulster-born harper Rory Dall O'Cahan, who traveled into Scotland and long played for the great families of that country. Recent research, however, raises the question whether he ever really existed.
The tune was reworked a century later by blind Irish harper Turlough O'Carolan (1670–1738) and later used for the Irish song “Maire beil ata h-Amnair”. Several early Scottish versions of the melody appear in the Balcarres Lute Manuscript, compiled in 1694. The present settings is taken from O'Farrell's Pocket Companion for the Irish or Union Pipes (1806).