Tune of the Day: Jimmy O'Brien's Jig
The great collector Francis O'Neill learned this tune from County Mayo piper James O'Brien, who visited Chicago (where O'Neill worked as a police officer) in 1876. He is described as
[...] a neat, tasty Irish piper of the Connacht school of close players, and though his Union pipes were small, they were sweet and musical... One of his peculiarities—and an unpleasant one, occasionally—was a habit of stopping the music in order to indulge in conversation. He could not be induced to play a tune in full, when under the influence of stimulants, as his loquacity was uncontrollable, and he never hesitated under such conditions to express a passing sentiment. Amiable and harmless at all times, he died at a comparatively early age in Chicago, a victim to conviviality, his only weakness.
O'Neill states that the jig was unknown among Chicago musicians prior to O'Brien, even by musicians from Mayo, somewhat surprising given its apparent long history in Ireland.