Known as “The Bible of Irish
Music,” Mel Bay’s facsimile edition contains the original 1903
collection of 1,850 melodies consisting of airs, jigs, reels, hornpipes,
long songs, and marches for fiddle or practically any other melody
instrument. Each of the book’s 360+ pages presents 2 – 4 tunes in
standard notation, together with stylistically appropriate
ornamentation. Tune titles are given in Gaelic and in English with a few
tunes appearing in two or three variations or “settings.” Intricate
Celtic fonts similar to the cover illustration grace the main sections
of this authoritative book. Famed Celtic harper, Turlough O’Carolan, is
given his own segment entitled “O’Carolan’s Compositions,” which
includes many of his planxties or tribute songs. The book concludes with
a comprehensive alphabetic listing of song titles.
Piper,
fiddler, flautist and twice selected Chief of the Chicago Police
Department by two different mayors, Francis O’Neill (1848 – 1905), was
born in Tralibane, near Bantry, County Cork Ireland and immigrated to
the United States after being shipwrecked while serving as a cabin boy
on an English merchant ship. Although he himself could not read or write
music, he collected tunes from the burgeoning Irish community in
Chicago as well as from many of the major performers of his era. He also
recruited many Irish musicians to serve on the Chicago police force.
O’Neill would learn tunes by ear on a tin whistle and later play them
for his nephew, James, or one of his sergeants who were capable of
writing them down. In this fashion, he saved some 3,500 Irish melodies
for posterity.