Sunday 2 February 2025
Tune of the Day: The Kilfinane Jig
Traditional Irish jig
This jig is taken from Francis O'Neill's collection Dance Music of Ireland, published in Chicago in 1907. Musician Paul de Grae writes that it is likely O'Neill obtained the jig from artist George Petrie's (1790–1866) manuscript collection, where it can be found as an untitled jig obtained from another collector, Patrick Weston Joyce (1827–1914), who in turn had it “from D. Cleary, Kilfinane” (a small town in County Limerick). The settings are close but not identical, perhaps the result of a reworking by Francis O'Neill's transcriber and collaborator, James O'Neill.