Irish Flute Tunes

I can't tell you much about this tune. This version is fairly close to the one Sonny McDonagh recorded for Brendán Breathnach's Ceol Rince na hÉireann Vol 2.

Here's a tune I heard on a Tommy Peoples record a good few years ago. The passage of time might explain how my memory of which note go where has gone who knows where. For a fiddle tune, I think it's OK for the flute.

Here's a tune I learned years ago from a transcription of John Egan's flute playing. It was in a journal called "Ceol" which Brandán Breathnach used to produce in the 1960s. I used to go to the Central Library in Belfast in the 1980s and photocopy tunes from it. There may well be another name for this tune but I don't know it. I think it's a lovely, straightforward sort of tune. The grammar in the...

Here's a reliable old reel. I'm not sure what kind of master it is whose return is being commemorated here but the outcome is fairly palatable in any case; not that I'm advocating that this tune should be eaten.

Here's a reel from the playing of Paddy Taylor, a flute player from Abbyfeale in Co. Limerick who played a wooden Bohm flute.

I can't tell you much about this.  I think of it as one of those common tunes which I never hear.  There a lot of tunes with that air of virtual commonness about their airs (not sure about their grace-notes). I'm having to jog my memory by flicking through a few books to see the start of tunes.  This particular aide memoir lives in Ceol Rince na hÉireann Vol1.  I'll very likely be looking through...

Here's a jig called "Let us be drinking and kissing the ladies". I haven't really much to say about that. It's a good jig and a popular one. I believe some things in the title are also popular in certain quarters.

Here's a popular reel called after a Banshee / Bean Sí / Bean Sidhe. I think it's in the key of heebee G bee.

Here's a reel in "C" named after the great, late fiddle player, A McG. When I play tunes on the flute in "C" there always seems to be a slightly bronchial drainpipe sound going on. Sometimes the flute sounds funny too. Being a bit parochial, I usually associate this tune with a different, fairly recently lost fiddle player, Seán McGuire. Maybe I'll just call it McG's reel.

Here's a highland. The playing is a bit more gormless than Gormond here but it is getting late and I find it hard to be otherwise.

This is a fairly common tune.  I hope you like it.

Here's a nice sparce reel Like lots of tunes that Micko Russell played, it is not cluttered by too many notes. So many tunes played these days sound like the putting to sound of a manuscript which just been sneezed on - by someone quite poorly at that. It's sometimes good to have simple things around too.

Here's a very very very popular jig. One reason it's very very very popular is that it's fairly easy to learn.

This might not be the "O'Mahoney's" you were expecting (as if people sit around expecting hornpipes of whatever name) but I noticed it under this name in "Ceol Rince na hÉireann Vol 2. I always just called it "do you know this one?". Brendán Breathnach took it down from Denis Murphy's playing for CRÉ 2. I'll go with the present name as I always believe what other people have written.

Here's a popular tune.  My only doubt is that I might have leaned it at a concert of something far removed from Irish traditional music.  Now I come to think of it, I'm fairly sure I've never been to a concert so I probably got the tune from a record so it should be OK.   I did get taken to the zoo once when I was about seven.

There might be something Scottish, maybe even Scott Skinnerish about this jig. I heard it from Sean McGuire but I'm OK.

I hadn't played this tune for a long time until I thought I had been asked to record it here. Once I'd finished the process I realised that "The Green Groves of" is not a synonym for "Farewell to". I'll maybe take a trip to the airport and get some inspiration for the tune I was supposed to play. (I think I had a mish-mash of farewell to green groves in Erin's Ireland earlier.  I hope this particu...

Tá súil agam go bhfuil an leagan ceart agam an iarraidh seo. There are too many ways saying bye-bye to places.

Here's a good reel.  I tried playing "The Green Groves of Erin" and ended up with a mixture of that and "Farewell to Erin".  Thankyou Alex for pointing that out. Here's a tune as a compromise. "Éirinn " should have 2  "n"s in the dative case anyway (I nearly said "in any case" - I hate languages).  At least "Ireland" is less mutable. I'm away to check my grammar and my tune versions. Thanks, Micha...

Here's a very popular jig. It's a nice tune which is good on the flute. I think I heard a good recording once of the Leitrim flute player Packie Duignan playing it on a record which was made of him and Seamus Horan.

Here's reel from the Donegal fiddle player, John Doherty. I got it from an old tape where he was introducing the tunes.  This is the name he gave it.

Here's one I was asked to play. I'd never heard the name before so I looked it up and found this tune. I'd always wondered what it was called. The internet tells me it is also called "Coleman's Cross". It fails to mention what's annoyed him.

Does it gather any moss? This is a Donegal fiddle tune which I was asked to play. It's also called "The Gravel Walks to Granie", referring to a place in Donegal. It sounds good on 2 fiddles with one of them playing a drone on a low A. I'm sorry I couldn't demonstrate this but between holding the flute and typing, my hands were sort of tied, and very tired.

Here's a very melodic and cheerful hornpipe which was recorded by, among others, Paddy Killoran. It's a great tune to change into from another, slightly less contented, hornpipe.  There are plenty of these about so I'll not suggest any ones in particular.

Here's a very popular reel. It's especially good for learning. I wish I could identify with the subject of the title. Things mightn't seem so LOUD this morning.