Tune of the Day: The Yellow Flail
Irish historian Patrick Weston Joyce printed two versions of this tune in his Ancient Irish Music (1873), of which the present air is the second of the two referred to in his remarks:
This air I have known from my childhood, and always by the name of the “Súiste buidhe”, or “The yellow flail”. But the air immediately following, which I noted down from the singing of Joseph Martin, a native of county Limerick, was, according to him, known by the same name. They are both similar in character and expression — airy and graceful in movement; and as they are precisely alike in measure and rhythm, it is probably that an Irish song called “Súiste Buide” was sung to both indifferently, and gave them the same name. Observe that both are song airs, and are to be played somewhat slower than double jig time.