Saturday 2 November 2024
Tune of the Day: The Angry Peeler
Traditional Irish jig
The earliest version of this tune is found, as an untitled jig, in Book 3 of the large music manuscript collection of County Leitrim fiddler and piper Stephen Grier (c. 1824–1894).
The title “The Angry Peeler” is first seen in Francis O'Neill's 1903 collection Music of Ireland. “Peeler” was (and to an extent, still is) a slang term for a policeman in the British Isles, as well as in America until the end of the 19th century. Originally, it was a nickname for a police constable who was a member of the first modern professional police force, the Metropolitan Police in London, formed by Sir Robert Peel in 1829.