The Compositions

of
Ed Reavy
CONTENTS

Introduction…………………………………3
Reels…………………………………………….7
Jigs…………………………..………………….54
Hornpipes…………………………………..71
Highlands, Barndances & Airs……85

This file contains the collected compositions of Ed Reavy, VERSION 2.0.

It is for personal use and the music must not be included in any books, performances or
recordings without the express permission of the Ed Reavy Foundation.

Ed Reavy, Jr., President

Ed Reavy Non-Profit Foundation
2004 Aspen Circle
Springfield, PA, USA, 19064
edjr@reavy.us

© Copyright Ed Reavy Non-Profit Foundation. This file:

- May be distributed freely (with restrictions below).
- May not be used for commercial purposes (such as printing a tune book to sell).
- This copyright notice must be kept, except when e-mailing individual tunes.
- May be printed on paper for personal use.
- Questions? E-mail: bil@mckenty.us

Should you find errors, omissions or have questions about this file, please direct your email
to bil@blueskiesink.com.

Credits: Gerry Strong, John Chambers, Naka Ishii, Kathleen Conery, Philippe
Varlet,Bernard Chenery, Paul g. Mulvaney, Irtrad-l and Fiddle-l and to the Reavy Family.
Additionally, Thanks to rog@vitanuova.com from the fiddle-l list for a great deal of help
in the refinements to Version 2.0!
No composer of traditional dance tunes in the history of Irish music has ever had his
music adopted and played as widely as Ed. He devoted much of his life to the creation
of a vast body of compelling, finely crafted tunes leaving an indelible imprint on the
beautiful old tradition that was always his first love.

Ed Reavy was born in the village of Barnagrove in the County Cavan in the year 1897.
He came with his parents to

Philadelphia in the year 1912, and with the exception of two visits home to Ireland - one
of nine months in 1922 and the other of three weeks in 1969 - lived the rest of his life in
Philadelphia until his death in 1988.

By the time he was ten years old he had already developed a great love for Irish
traditional music. There was music in the community he came from and there was also
music in the family. His mother had cousins by the name of Lennon who lived in
County Monaghan. They were seven brothers, all stonemasons, and they were great
fiddle players. The Reavy's own house was a popular location for sessions. They owned
a big barn where the local musicians used to congregate for sprees - music and dancing.
He took to America with him vivid recollections of these evenings of merrymaking and
those memories were always to stay with and inspire him.

Ed served complete apprenticeships first to the machinists' and then to the plumbing
trade. He became a Master plumber and conducted his own successful business for the
rest of his working life. He married and settled in Philadelphia and raised a family of six
children. He became an excellent fiddler and made a classic recording for the Victor
company in Camden New Jersey in 1927 of two reels: ‘The Boys of the Lough' and
‘Tom Clark's Fancy' and two hornpipes: ‘The Donegal' and ‘The Cliff'. [Victor 21593B
(42483)]

He began composing in the 1930s and continued creating new tunes up to the late 1960s.
His sons estimate that he might have composed as many as five hundred tunes though
only about 130 have been saved for publication. ‘The Hunters' House', Ed's most
popular composition, is almost certain to be played in any session of Irish music
anywhere in the world from Sydney, Australia to Miltown Malbay, Co Clare.

Ed's tunes came to him in moments of reflection. He had to be in a certain mood

before he could even start. These ‘moods' could come on anytime, day or night, but
they were most likely to occur if he was in regular contact with other musicians. He
would ponder frequently on Ireland, his own childhood there and the country's
problems: “The trials and tribulations that the Irish people went through in the past 750
years, all that enters into music… naturally it shows up in places. That's why in so many
of the slow airs there's so much sadness and even in jigs and reels there's so much there
that reminds you of the trials and tribulations we've been through."
Unlike most composers of the past, Ed's music achieved widespread recognition and
popularity in his own lifetime; a process facilitated by increased travel communication
between America and Ireland and the expanding technology of sound reproduction.
The recognition began as soon as he started to compose when other musicians became
captivated instantly by his tunes.

Over the years Ed played his compositions for hundreds of other Irish musicians in
Philadelphia and New York. In addition he was President of the Irish Musicians'
Association of America, an Organization founded in 1956. The Association had annual
conventions in cities such as St. Louis, Cleveland, Chicago, Philadelphia and New York,
which enabled Ed to become acquainted with a wide range of Irish musicians who lived
elsewhere in America. Many players liked his tunes, learned them and subsequently
brought them back to their home cities and to Ireland, where they caught on as well.

A prime figure in the dissemination of his tunes was Armaghman Louis Quinn from
New York. Louis was a noted fiddle player, a prominent figure in Irish music
organizations and a close friend of Ed's. Louis would travel to Ireland regularly
bringing with him tapes of tunes popular among the Irish musicians in America, which
he copied for many prominent musicians in Ireland and also performed, on Radio
Eireann.

This material included many of Ed's compositions. Over the years several of these
tunes were recorded by musicians in Ireland and went into aural circulation in
traditional music circles. Many of the tunes at that time were unnamed and known by
musicians simply as “Reavy's tunes." Frequently they circulated without any given title
at all. As one would expect, Ed was extremely pleased to see his tunes being played so
widely. “The transmission of tunes" he said, “is like telling a story", as far as change
and variation from one musician to another is concerned. “Fortunately enough, most
of the tunes were played much as I would like them played."

Ed's son Joe was the single biggest force in the popularization of his father's music.
Beginning in the 1960s, Joe began painstakingly to notate his father's compositions.
Many of them had been stored on homemade 78-rpm recordings, which Ed had
recorded in his home or in the home of his good friend, Roscommon fiddler Tommy
Caulfield. Others were simply in his head. Joe transcribed and helped his father name
many of the tunes, which to that point had remained untitled. The first collection of
Ed's music “Where the Shannon Rises" was printed in a limited edition and became a
collector's item in double-quick time. It brought Ed's music to a wide audience and
facilitated the learning of his tunes.

Certain stylistic features are characteristic of much of Ed's work, for example, his
liberal use of “accidentals", his use of the full range of the fiddle, and his occasional
utilization of keys, such as G minor, D minor and F major - keys used comparatively
rarely in Irish dance music.

Many of the compositions are what the great Washington fiddler Brendan Mulvihill
calls “paradise tunes" for fiddlers. Of course the fact that Ed was a fiddler himself
made his tunes particularly suited to that instrument.

Ultimately, the success of a composer in Irish traditional music, as in other musical

idioms, is measured by the extent to which the tune maker's compositions are adopted
by other traditional musicians. In the final analysis it is musicians who decide what
deserves to be accommodated and what should be set aside. And by playing and
recreating Ed's music they have spoken eloquently of the value compositions. It is the
ultimate peer affirmation.

The great Chicago fiddler Liz Carroll, who selected hornpipe “The Lone Bush" for
one of her tune selections when she won the Junior All Ireland fiddle competition feels
that each of Ed's compositions represents a complete artistic statement. “You wouldn't
want to add anything to the tunes and you wouldn't want to take anything from them"
she says. “They are simply perfect."

The great Baltimore accordion player Billy McComisky feels that all of Ed's tunes are
quite unique, suggesting his genius didn't follow any fixed formula. “I often heard a
tune that I liked and wanted to learn and was amazed to find out later that Ed had
composed it. It seemed so unlike other tunes of his that I already had heard."

When winning the Senior All Ireland fiddling title, New York fiddler Eileen Ivers
choose “Maudabawn Chapel" the tune best suited to showcasing her brilliant tech skills
and extraordinary inventive flair.

Ed passed away in 1989 at the great age of 90 but his music is still a vital part of the lives
of those who know and loved him. His funeral took place on a bitterly cold January day
in Drexel Hill, just west of Philadelphia. Derry fiddler Eugene O'Donnell and myself
played for the services in the church and the great young musician Seamus Egan, who
grew up in nearby Lansdowne was to play the Uilleann pipes at graveside. The pipe
reeds wouldn't work in the cold so Seamus played the tin whistle instead; his hands
cover by black gloves with the fingertips cut off to enable him to play. He played a
lament for Ed at the graveside - one of Ed's own slow airs. With the steam rising from
the cold steel of the whistle and the haunting lonesome sound rising into the cold grey
Pennsylvania sky, the scene embodied in one unforgettable moment the continuity of
Irish music in America. Poet Michael Doyle captured the spirit of it a poem he wrote
dramatizing the symbolism of the event.
 HOW COULD REAVY DIE!
The plumber of the hornpipes is dead.
The old diviner with the hazel bow,
That found the Shannon's source
And made its magic waters flow across the world.
“NO" she said “he's not dead,
How could Reavy die!"
And who are you to say!
“I am the Wind: The Wind
That drove the clouds in herds
Above the Cavan hills and Drexel too
And whispered to the oats in Barnagrove.
I am the breeze that kissed O'Carolan's face
With moisture on my lips
'Til notes danced within his mind
Like flames behind a blind.
I am the breath in Reavy's body
I used to whistle in his mouth
Merely oxygen upon arrival
But virgin music coming out.
He would hold me in the evenings
And we'd play within his soul
He tamed me with his reverence
But I always had to go . . .
So I bore him sounds of sweetness
Some were sad and some were glad
And he composed half a thousand tunes
About the happy time we had.
“Hush!” I whispered. Did you see his fiddle
On the altar - silent as a stone
And his body on the grave in Drexel Hill?
Clamped on the hole in a final salute
Like an old finger frozen on a flute.
Did you see the people in a circle
Standing sadly in the snow,
When the pipes refused to play in the cold?
“I was there" she said
I am the Breath of the earth.
Every mouth is a wisp of my prayer
Breathing blessings of incense
On the bites of the air
Because life has the edge on the ice.
Listen my friend, to the lad with the whistle
With his finger tips timid and cold.
See the life that he brings to the old man's tune
And the leaks that he brings to the eyes.
See Reavy arise from the holes in the tin…
And announce on his grave “I'm alive!"
— Michael Doyle
REELS
 Where The Shannon Rises
Ed Reavy

3 3
1 2

3 3 3 3

3
3
Notes: Where the Shannon Rises. Ed was proud to recall that the majestic Shannon rose in his county.
For this reason he called his first book of tunes: Where the Shannon Rises.

Red Tom of the Hills

Ed Reavy
3
3

3 3 3

3 3

Notes: Red Tom of the Hills. Tom came from somewhere in the Monaghan Hills-no one knew
exactly where. He loved to ceili and "pack it in" Tom had a "shakey" hand that
could have been a trial to most. But you would never know it from the way Tom
could slap large cuts of butter on his bread at tea time. Mom Reavy said Tom’s
hand was not to be pitied "for it always shook deeper into the butter."
 Never Was Piping So Gay
Ed Reavy
3
2
4

1 2

3 3

3 3

Notes: Never Was Piping So Gay. The concluding line of O’Driscoll’s refrain in Yeats’ poem, the
Host of the air. O’Driscoll dreamed that his wife Bridget was taken by the Host
as he was playing harmlessly at cards with "the merry old men." When O’Driscoll
awoke from his dream,all that remained of the dream was the strange unearthly sound of a pipe
piping away in the distant air- "And never was piping so sad, And never was piping so gay."
 The Bog of Allen
Ed Reavy
3 3
2
4

3 3

3 3

Notes: The Bog of Allen. Mentioned eloquently in Joyce’s short story, "The Dead" (in Dubliners).
This desolate region reminds us of Yeats’ line "the drifting, indefinite bitterness of life"
Ed has always felt that far too much is made of Ireland’s greenery and not enough said
of her terrible greyness. Ed has lived to see the whole of Ireland, and he has tried
to get as much of it as he could into his own tunes.

The Peddlar’s Punch

Ed Reavy

2
4
3
1

3 3
2

Notes: The Peddlar’s Punch. Ed likes a title that can be taken in more than one way. In this one
you don’t know which punch of the peddler is the most lethal. He might pack quite a
wallop if you cross him, but take just one good sup of his poteen and you’ll be lucky if you
don’t take total leave of your senses.
 Leddy From Cavan
Ed Reavy

4
4

1 2

1 2

3 3

Notes: Leddy from Cavan. John Leddy and Ed worked in the plumbing business together and became close
friends over the years. John was proud of Ed’s accomplishments, particularly because both
were Cavanmen. His son John Jr. was a promising young fiddler who studied with Ed in the forties.
John Sr. played the fiddle a bit himself and had a great love of traditional music.

The Slaney Bog

Ed Reavy
3

4
4

3 3 3 3

1 2

3 3 3 3

Notes: The Slaney Bog. This tune became an instant favorite with "The New York fellows" back in the forties.
 Mairedelia
Ed Reavy

4
4

Notes: Mairedelia. Ed’s granddaughter, who is carrying on the tradition herself.

Johnny McGoohan’s
Ed Reavy

4
4

1 2

3 3

1 2

Notes: Johnny McGoohan’s. Good musicians need good listeners, and two of the best
listeners where Johnny and his wife Katey. Johnny would be waiting on his
front porch hours before "the fellows" were expected on an evening for a session
of music; and no matter how long they played, it was never too late for a few
more tunes at the McGoohans. Tea and scones did not mean (as it usually does) that
the fiddling would stop. As Johnny would put it, "We’ll have a bite to eat and be
back at it for a few more before the night is done." And Katey would never disagree.
 The Blessings of Silver
Ed Reavy
3

4
4

1 2

3 3

Notes: The Blessings of Silver. Written for Lou and Mary Quinn’s twenty-fifth wedding
anniversary. Ed loved the connotations of the title: the blessings of twenty-five
years of marriage, the blessings of a couple growing old together, and the many
rewards of family life. Ed admired Lou not only because of his musical talent,
but also because he was a self-made man who set high standards for other immigrants
who followed him to the New World.

The High Hill

Ed Reavy
3 3
4
4

3 3
1 2

3
Notes: It’s the hill that almost disappears in the mist, where the hill people reside.
Stories have been told about it and about those who live there. Their music
is the music of a lost art and their stories are the tales of a forgotten time.
 Love At The Endings
Ed Reavy
3 3 3
4
4
3
1 2
3

1 2
3

Notes: Who can forget the impassioned speech of O’Killigan in O’Casey’s Purple Dust, especially
when he sets out to woo Avril away from her British lord. O’Killigan has only the simple
things in his favor. But Avril finally succumbs to his grand talk as he urges her "to spit
out what’s here" and make a home with him out in the west of Ireland where they’ll both
find "things to say and things to do, and love at the endings."

The Gypsy Girl

Ed Reavy

4
4
3
3

3
Notes: Like Sarah Casey, Synge’s "beauty of Ballinacree," the gypsy girl represents those strange
beauties of the road who have such devilish wild appeal, unlike any others we know. And you’ll
never see the likes of them in any other setting however far you venture.
 Lane To The Glen
Ed Reavy

4
4

3 3

3 3 3

Notes: This is the lane that led to the glen fiddler, the same solitary fiddler of Ed’s dreams.
Ed heard him often in the New World, particularly in the early morning hours when dreaming
reaches its peak performance. Long after we left Corown, Ed began to speak more openly
of this "strange fiddler" whose music seemed to come to him from all the familiar shops
in the old neighborhood. Whenever we got a tape of a promising young player from Ireland,
Ed would listen to it intently. "He’s good," he’d always remark, "but he’s no glen fiddler."
 Aughamore
Ed Reavy

4
4

1 2

1 2

3
Notes: Delia’s town, just a short distance from her native village of Aughtaboy. Like so many
beautiful Irish places names, Aughamore could fit nicely in any charming line of verse.
No wonder the immigrant takes pride in rehearsing the sound of his own native place.
He has lost much, but certainly not all. No feeling can quite match that stirring of the
heart when an exile hears his "own place home" spoken on the lips of those he loves.

Brian Quinn’s
Ed Reavy

4
4

1 2

3 3
1 2

3 3
3 3 3
Notes: Brian is now a very successful physician in Flemington,New Jersey. He is also a brilliant
piano accordionist and a great lover of traditional music. He is the second of Lou’s five
boys (two girls), and they all play music instruments.
 The Ceilier
Ed Reavy

4
4

3 3

Notes: He would come with his fiddle to "make his ceili." And he would never
come without a new tune or some new version of an old tune he heard
since his last visit. He could also tell an odd good story or two.

O’Leary’s Ireland
Ed Reavy

4
4

1 2

1 2

Notes: Yeats wrote about John O’Leary in his poem, "September 1913." At that time, Ed had just
left Ireland, because his parents saw no future in the farm and no real opportunities there
for their six children. The poet mourns the passing of O’Leary in the 1913 poem and
the passing, too, of all the things O’Leary stood for: "Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,
It’s with O’Leary in the grave." Ed believed in O’Leary-and in Emmet and Tone. This reel
celebrates their Ireland: O’Leary’s Ireland.
 Eleanor Kanes’s
Ed Reavy
3 3
4
4

3 3
3
3 3

3 3

3
3 3
Notes: Eleanor Kane’s. Eleanor lives in Chicago with her husband Jim (Neary). Both are long
time friends of Ed. Eleanor is one of the few pianists in the tradition who play melody
as well as chords. This reel is considered one of Ed’s top tunes.
 Reilly Of The White Hill
Ed Reavy

4
4
3
1 2

1 2

3
Notes: Reilly had a wild look and a fondness for cheating at cards. Before the night was
finished you could bet your last skin of a potato that Reilly would be stirring up
trouble. No one knew his first name. He was one of the "White Hill people" from a
region beyond the northern borders of Ed’s farmland.

In Memory of Coleman
Ed Reavy
3
4
4 3 3

3 3
3

3
3

3
Notes: No tune can adequately commemorate this great fiddler. Ed felt that he was the last
of the great players, and the only one he ever heard who had that strange wildness
in his playing that only the great ones possess. Ed wrote the tune as if Mike were
to play it. Perhaps he alone had the tools to do it complete justice.
 The Glen Fiddler
Ed Reavy

4
4
3
1 2

3 3

Notes: Ed was told there lived near the edge of the glen a fiddler unlike any he had ever heard.
To this day he wonders about that solitary fiddler and the strange tunes he played beside
a distant glen in Cavan. Although he never saw him play, Ed has heard some of those same
strange tunes in his dreams. And they have become his finest compositions.

The Highest Hill In Sligo

Ed Reavy

4
4

1 2

1 2

3 3

Notes: From this county came some of the greatest fiddlers in the tradition: Coleman,
Morrison, Scanlon, O’Beirne, and others before them. It is their Sligo, the Sligo
of Ballymote, Gurteen, and Collooney. And it is also the Sligo of Ben Bulben, that
most famous hill immortalized in the verses of Ireland’s Nobel Prize winning poet
William Butler Yeats.
 KnockBride
Ed Reavy

4
4

3 3

3 3

Notes: The Reavys lived half way between Knockbride and Maudabawn chapels. They had the
luxury of attending either. And they did.

Shanvaghera
Ed Reavy
3

4
4

Notes: The name of Brigid’s school in County Mayo. Like so many other place names in Ireland
it has the sound of the tradition in it.The school no longer stands, but Ed’s tune, we trust,
will live on to honor the memory of Delia’s little schoolhouse in the far west of Ireland.
 Hughie’s Cap
Ed Reavy
3
4
4
3
1 2

3
1 2

3
Notes: A favorite story of Ed’s tells of Hughie, an easygoing sort who had a fierce look when he wore
a certain cap. Friends would take Hughie along whenever a fight was anticipated. One look from
Hughie and his cap would silence the most quarrelsome bullies. One night, as it would happen,
Hughie’s friends found themselves in the worst sort of mix and quickly looked for Hughie’s help.
But Hughie, alas, had ventured out this time without his menacing capeen. "Oh God," one exclaimed,
"somebody go fetch Hughie’s cap, or there’ll be hell to pay for all of us this night!"
 Maudabawn Chapel
Ed Reavy
3 3
4
4

3 3

3 3

1 2

Notes: The local chapel in Ed’s parish where he first learned the simple ways of faith.

The Time We Had In Bansha

Ed Reavy
3
4
4

1
3

1 2
3

Notes: The tune commemorates the day the local fife and drum corps went to Bansha.
It happened over seventy years ago, but Ed remembers it as yesterday.
 The Wild Swans at Coole
Ed Reavy

4 3 3
4
3
1 2

1 2

3
3
Notes: Ed wanted one of his tunes to commemorate this favorite poem of his. He didn’t know
much Yeats, but what he knew he appreciatedparticularly the last verse of "The Swans"

But now they drift on the still water,

Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake’s edge or pool,
Delight men’s eyes when I awake someday,
To find they have flown away.
 Brefni O’Reilly
Ed Reavy

4
4
3
1 2

3 3

1 2
3

Notes: Is one of the landed names of Cavan and of old Brefni before it. The O’Reillys have spread
far and wide to wherever the immigrant has ventured in his many meanderings. This title
could well be our proud county’s battlecry, or the triumphant chant of a Cavan footballer
scoring a winning goal at Croake Park.

Ann From Monaghan

Ed Reavy

4
4

3 3 3
Notes: Ed’s favorite aunt on his mother’s side. She was a lively story teller who could
capture the hearts of the children who heard her speak. And she knew everyone who
lived in her region. Ed never quite finishes talking about this fascinating
woman of the tradition. Much of his musical inspiration has been kindled
by recollections of what Aunt Ann said many years ago.
 The Lad From Balinrobe
Ed Reavy
3
4
4

1 2
3

1 2

Notes: Written to honor the memory of Steve Murphy, Joe’s father-in-law, who was born outside
Balinrobe in the Neale in the early nineteen hundreds. Steve was a spirited man and a true friend.
 The Hunter’s House
Ed Reavy

4
4
3 3

3 3

3 3

3
Notes: It would be furnished with every evidence of the prize game he caught. It would be a place
where the best men would choose to gather and listen to Ireland’s finest players. This is
the setting Ed provides for this most popular of his tunes.
 The Letterkenny Blacksmith
Ed Reavy

4
4
3
1 2

3 3

3
1 2

3
3
Notes: Written to commemorate a legendary smithy with the strength of ten: "The Hair O’Brady,"
who could toss a stubborn six hundred pound jackass clear across a stream. Neil Dougherty
was the first to tell Ed of this hulk of a man who handled horses as if they were just
a simple sack of meal.

The Way to Shercock

Ed Reavy

4
4

1 2

3
Notes: When Ed returned with us to Ireland for a visit in 1969, we were amazed at his recall
of the old roads in his native region. He knew which ones stood and which were changed.
He never lost his childhood sense of direction. To this day, he could still show us the
way to Shercock.
 The Whistler of Rosslea
Ed Reavy

4
4
3 3 3
1 2

1 2

Notes: Ed was to a fair once in Rosslea and heard this whistler. He had a whistling range that
could easily match the register of a fiddle or flute. And he had all the embellishments
of a great traditional player, too. He sold fish in the market places and charmed his
customers with choice tunesmany of his own making.

The Shoemaker’s Daughter

Ed Reavy

4
4

3
3

Notes: Ed wrote the tune in the fifties, but it did not become popular in Ireland until the seventies,
when it was recorded by Seamus Connelly, the well-known Galway fiddler.
 The Fisherman’s Island
Ed Reavy
3 3
4
4

1 2

3
1 2
3

Notes: Ed believes that fishermen long to have their own island so they can
live surrounded by the sea they love. This reel celebrates their quest for
that elusive island home. It is one of Ed’s most popular compositions.

The Cuilcagh Mountains

Ed Reavy

4
4
3
1 2

Notes: The origin of the majestic Shannon is in this small remote mountain range in Cavan. Ed took
pride in this and for that reason called his first book of tunes: Where the Shannon Rises.
 The House of Hamill
Ed Reavy

4
4
3

3
3 3 3 3

3
3 3 3

Notes: Ed’s mother was a Hamill and they came from Monaghan. They had a fondness for music and the
traditional way of life. Ed learned many tunes from Mom, who as an old-time "lyddler." She
played no instrument, but she could hold a tune with the best in her region.
 The Day We Went To Kells
Ed Reavy
3 3
4
4

3 3

3 3 3

3
3 3
Notes: Ed was quite young when it happened, but he remembers vividly the festivity of
the occasion-music of course, and young and old together to celebrate the trip
to some far off place they had only dreamed of going.

The Flight Of The Wild Geese

Ed Reavy
3

4
4

1 2
3

1 2

Notes: It could be a title that recalls the flight of those Ulster patriots or just
a celebration of one of nature’s recurring themes: the departure of a wild
flock to some distant shore. The tune is superbly built and fitting to honor
both occasions.
 Pat Clark’s
Ed Reavy
3
4
4

1 2
3

3 1 2
3

Notes: Ed learned some of the basics of fiddle playing from this old Cavan friend who died in 1969
(just a short time after our visit there). It was also through Pat that Ed (and his brother
George) joined the local fife and drum corps in Cootehill. The tunes he learned stimulated
an interest in the old marches. Pat also taught him a few traditional tunes that he himself
had mastered on the fiddle.

The Ireland We Knew

Ed Reavy
3 3
4
4

3 3

3 3
3

Notes: Much has come and gone in Ireland since the early days of this century. Nothing remains
the same in a world that has long since entered its most advanced technological age. But poets
dream their dreams, and the heart of every Irishman longs for the Ireland he once knew.
 Chapel Gate
Ed Reavy

4
4

3 3

3 3

Notes: The Chapel Gate is Knockbride’s, the family parish. Many a good wedding party started there
featuring the wedding fiddler and his charming selection of nuptial tunes.

The Light in Dennis Munion’s Window

Ed Reavy

4
4

3 3
3

Notes: Dennis lived along the "starry" lane. His place was near Aunt Ann’s home. As children,
Ed and his brother George would often walk Ann home when night came on. Ann had keen
eyesight and was able to see Dennis’ place long before the boys could. She said she could
always tell the time of night it was by "the light in Dennis Munion’s window."
 The Donegal Doughertys
Ed Reavy

4
4

1 2

3 1 2

3 3 3

Notes: In memory of the many talented Dougherty families. First, of course there was Neil and his
son John, who were from the Glenties. Neil, a very close friend of Ed’s and a gifted fiddler,
was a special talent. Ed praised Neil as "a little known master of his trade." The tune also
comemmorates Charlie Dougherty and his wife Mary ("dear people"), no relation to Neil. And
finally the tune recalls John, the tinker, and his musical family from the same region of
the Glenties.

The Village Of Cong

Ed Reavy

4
4

3 3

3 3

Notes: This is the village of the Quiet Man, where Sean Thornton (John Wayne) squares of against
Squire Danaher (Victor McLaglen) in one of Hollywood’s legendary donnybrooks. Ed loved the
quaintness of this village and the people he met there.
 The Loughs of Cavan
Ed Reavy
3
4
4

3
Notes: Cavan, "the place of caves," is also a region spotted with lovely lakes like Lough Sheelin.
Ed likes to refer to his Cavan birthplace as "my old lake country home."

The Exile
Ed Reavy

4
4

3 3

3 3

Notes: The sad gaiety of this tune celebrates the longing of the exile for his native home.
No one quite understands the irony of a happy farewell as well as the poet in Frank
O’Connor’s translation from the Irish:

What happier fortune can one find,

Than with the girl who pleases one’s mind;
To leave one’s home and friends behind
And sail on the first favoring wind.
 The Passing Fancy
Ed Reavy

4
4
3
1 2

3 3

1 2

3 3

Notes: Only the great tunes survive. But in our time we also welcome the charming lift of a passing
fancy. The first fresh strains of a well-wrought tune make us all a little bit better for the
hearing of it.

Charlie Mulvihill’s
Ed Reavy
3

4
4

3
Notes: Named for a very popular musician who was born in the Bronx of Irish parents. He probably
knew more tunes than any musician in Ed’s memory. He had a great love for the tradition
and this was reflected in his sensitive renditions of the countless tunes he knew.
 Molly on the Shore
Ed Reavy

4
4

3 3

3 3 3

3 3

Notes: Fritz Kreisler once recorded a setting of this popular tune. Ed re-wrote the first two parts
and added an original third part. That third part is one of his finest compositions.
 Killour House
Ed Reavy

4
4

3
3

3
3 3
Notes: The home of Matty and Bridie Murphy in the Neale (County Mayo). Ed visited there in ’69 with
Joe and his wife Mary Jo, (niece of the Murphys). The house was traditionally Irish: no hot
water, no "fancy plumbing," only a full measure of love and genuine Irish hospitality. The Murphys
follow the simple life and this left us with fond memories long after we returned to the States.
May Killour House live on in this traditional tune dedicated to them by Ed.
 Whitecross
Ed Reavy
3 3 3
4
4

1 2

3
3

3
3

3 3
Notes: A title Ed picked for Lou Quinn, a lifetime close friend who comes from a place near Whitecross
in County Armagh. It was mainly through Lou’s encouragement and support that Ed continued to
write traditional tunes for the last sixty years.
 The Tinker Cart

4
4
3
1 2

3 3

3 3

Notes: This is Ed’s setting of an old tune that is seldom heard today. It’s one of those lovely slow
reels that has the right touch in the most important spots. Ed’s "fixing" of it in this setting
makes it a truly superb fiddle tune.
 Pat Boyle of Glencolumkill
Ed Reavy
3
3
4
4

3
3

3 3

3 3

Notes: Ed met many fiddlers through the years, but Pat was special. He came to Corktown early
in the century and encouraged young Irish musicians who settled there. Some of Ed’s best
compositions were inspired by the playing of Pat Boyle.

The Glen Reel

Ed Reavy

4
4

1 2

1 2

3 3 3

Notes: Glens are not always pictures of springtime greenery. Ed remembers them much as Nora did in
Synge’s "Shadow of the Glen" - "and seeing nothing but the mists rolling down the bog, and the
mists again, and they rolling up the bog, and hearing nothing but the wind crying out in the
bits of broken trees left from the great storm, and the streams roaring with the rain." Ireland
is the terrible beauty of the dark glen in the depth of its wild wind and storm.
 John Roarty’s
Ed Reavy

4
4

Notes: John had a taproom in West Philadelphia in the thirties. Ed on occasion played there for John
and his friends. John himself played the fiddle at the Philadelphia dance halls (29th and
Market Sts.) back in the twenties.

The Market Day

Ed Reavy
3

4
4

3 3

Notes: Always a special day in the old tradition.

 The Starry Lane to Monaghan
Ed Reavy

4
4
3

1 2

1 2

Notes: Barnagrove is near the Monaghan border. On a starry night, so the story goes, one could look
down this lane and see clear through to the neighboring county. Ed’s mother came from Monaghan.
To this day, he has a special fondness for Monaghan people.

Lisnathara
Ed Reavy

4
4
3
1 2

1 2

3 3
3
Notes: Ed says it was a legendary place in Ulster where musicians gathered once a year "to revel
and make grand music." This reel is the fulfillment of a young boy’s dream.
 The Old Players
Ed Reavy

4
4

Notes: The tune commemorates the great fiddlers of the past: Michael Coleman, Kipeen Scanlon, and
a host of unheralded ones who went to the clay unrecognized. The history of Ireland is a fiddle.
It alone can convey the sounds and feelings of sad gaiety that characterize the plight of that
long-troubled land.

The Last Tune

Ed Reavy

4
4
3
1 2
3

3
1 2

Notes: It may not be the last one, but it certainly will do as a fine conclusion to a story that began
almost a century ago on a country farm near the town of Cootehill in County Cavan.
 The Mountain Home
Ed Reavy

4
4

Notes: There is a mountain road that leads to this secluded home in the Irish hills. The hill people
that live there cherish the old values. The exile secretly weeps for what is gone forever:
his long lost mountain home.

Charlie McDevitt’s
Ed Reavy

4
4

3
Notes: Named for a keen observer of the music. He was one of the many Donegal fiddler friends of Ed,
who came often to exchange tunes and old stories. Charlie had a great head for the music, but
not the hands to match. Trying to finger a difficult passage he was often heard to exclaim,
"They won’t go down." But this did not deter Charlie from becoming an important influence in the
tradition at that time. He affectionately called Ed "the Doctor".
 Crossmaglen
Ed Reavy

4
4

3
Notes: I’m told that the road from Carrickmacross to Crossmaglen is lined with your worst sort of rogues.
The verse perhaps comes from some old cantankerous Irishman who probably never himself walked
this road. If he had, he would surely have been charmed with the likes of what he saw and heard.
(Another tune to delight Ed’s close friend from Armagh: Lou Quinn).
 The Drover’s Journey Home
Ed Reavy

4
4
3
1 2

3
Notes: The drover was a part of the tradition that Ed felt should be remembered. He drove his herds
across the cold, dark fields of that ancient land much as his father did before him. A part
of that story is told beautifully in Padraic Colum’s poem "The Drover."
 Monaghan Hills
Ed Reavy
3
4
4
3

1 2

3 3

1 2

3 3
Notes: One of his tunes had to pay tribute to these hills; not the Fork Hill region that Paddy Kavanaugh
celebrated, but the same nearby hills of Monaghan that Ed’s mother and his Aunt Ann spoke of in
childhood stories. Ed’s mother played no musical instrument, but she could "lyddle" all the great
tunes of her region. This love of the tradition she passed on to Ed.

Captain Tom Connolly’s

Ed Reavy

4
4

3 3

Notes: For an old New York friend of Ed’s and a fine fiddle player himself. This fulfills a promise
to Tom made several years ago.
 Tales Of Barnagrove
Ed Reavy

4
4
3 3

3
3

3 3 3 3

Notes: What we feel in Paddy Kavanaugh’s verses we can also hear in Ed’s tunes: the simplicity of country
people, their old roads and villages, and the nearby rising Monaghan hills. Tales of Barnagrove
tells how Ed felt about his early native experiences in that region of Ireland.

The Side Of The Road

Ed Reavy
3
4
4
3

Notes: The talented, wayward travelling people made it their home. We weep to tell the sad loss
of talent among those wild wanderers of the road. Some of the best fiddle players in Ireland
came from their ranks.
 Fiddler’s Mountain
Ed Reavy
3
4
4

1 2

3 3 3

Notes: Fiddlers need to be heard, so why not a place apart, a mountain just for them. And where is this
spot to be where the great tunes of Ireland are commemorated? If it is only in the mind of man,
it is place enough for those of us who seek it.

The Old Cameronian

3 3 3
4
4

3 3 3

1 2

Notes: Ed’s setting of a very old tune. Just how much he altered the reel over the years is hard to
say now. Some of his later compositions are traceable to the fine strains of this old tune.
 The Hills Of Old
Ed Reavy

4
4

1 2

1 2

Notes: Ireland has no mountains, only high hills. And these hills are older than the centuries of man,
and older too than the many tunes he fondly fashions.

Green Island Home

Ed Reavy

4
4

1 2

1 2

3 3

Notes: Many a green island rests along the rim of the far oceans; but for those Irishmen that cherish
the memory of their own dear land, there is only one Green Island Home.
 The Creel Of Turf

3 3
4
4

1 2
3

Notes: Ed got the "strains" of this tune many years ago from Jimmy McElroy, a County Monaghan flute
player. The title comes from Synge’s verse about Patch Shaneen and Maurya Prendergast. Shaneen
grieves the passing of Maurya, his wife, who travelled the roads with him "west in Carnareagh"-

"She’d pick her bag of carrageen

Or perries through the surf,
Or loan an ass of Foxy Jim
To fetch her creel of turf."

The poor couple had little, but they loved much. The poem and tune make a good match for anyone
seeking a glimpse of the old Ireland.
JIGS
 The Crossroads Dance
Ed Reavy

6
8

1 2

Notes: It was a popular place for holding dances in the old tradition. Ed was not much of a dancer,
but he went along just the same in hopes that an "odd good player might be manning the fiddle."
 Both Meat and Dhrink
Ed Reavy

6
8

1 2

Notes: "Old Pat Kane" was a Wexford man who worked on a rich man’s estate in the Philadelphia suburbs.
Ed visited Pat and his wife in the early seventies, a year or so after his visit to Ireland.
Pat worked the farm much as he did in the Old Country and he had great flavor in his language.
He liked his bottle of "Porther," whenever he could get it. He often exclaimed that man needed
nothing else to sustain himself in this life. "It is more than a drink," he was heard to say-
"it’s both meat and dhrink."
 The Women of Monaghan
Ed Reavy

6
8

1 2

Notes: For the Hamill women and the other lovely people that Ed knew as a child in neighboring Monaghan.
 The Castleblaney Piper
Ed Reavy

6
8

Notes: Ed said that this was a great place for pipers in his day. Ed is not a great lover of
the pipes, but he had a special feeling for these great pipers of his childhood days
when he visited the Hamills and family friends in County Monaghan.
 Swans Among The Rushes
Ed Reavy

6
8

Notes: Ed loved to watch their flight and see them "paddle in the cold companionable streams or climb
the air." He watched them, too, when they laid their eggs among the rushes in the lake waters
near the family farm in Barnagrove.

Two Sisters
Ed Reavy

6
8

Notes: For two of Ed’s grandaughters, Sheila and Eileen Steskey.

 The Bearded Fiddler
Ed Reavy

6
8

Notes: Farley was a great tramp fiddler who roamed through Monaghan and Cavan on fair days. His daughter
sold the family wares as he played to the delight of their customers. Ed recalled one day that Farley
played so beautifully that the daughter threw her arms around him in a burst of spontaneous joy. Ed never
forgot the wholesome feelings expressed there, nor did he fail to recognize the life-warming secrets
shared by those who love the music of Ireland.

The Town Of Coothill

Ed Reavy

6
8

Notes: Ed’s own town in Cavan, just a short distance from his native village, Barnagrove. He was amazed
at how little the town had changed when he visited there in ’69 - "Only the lane where the fish
was sold has changed," he remarked. "It’s still the same old Cootehill."
 Packy’s Place
Ed Reavy

6
8

Notes: Owned by Ed’s favorite neighbors, the Clerkins. Their son Packy was running the farm
when we made our visit there in ’69.
 Aughtaboy
Ed Reavy

6
8

Notes: The village the Morleys came from Delia (Brigid), Ed’s wife, was born there February 18, 1902.
The old house still stands after these many years, though no one now lives there. Four of the eight
children are still living: Delia and Margaret here in the States, and Jim and Eileen in England.
 Gene O’Donnell’s
Ed Reavy

6
8

1 2

Notes: Written for Eugene O’Donnell, the talented dancer and fiddler from Derry. Gene has been a close
friend of Ed’s since the fifties.
 The Swallow’s Nest
Ed Reavy

6
8

1 2

Notes: Ed could not explain why certain tunes became jigs and not reels or hornpipes. His simple
retort was: "I guess a jig was just meant to be a jig."
 The Irish Washerwoman

6
8

1 2

Notes: The original setting of this all-too-familiar tune has been thoroughly played out. Ed’s setting elevates
the strains of the old tune and gives it more dignified footing. There is no Kiss Me, I’m Irish in Ed’s
version of this popular St. Patrick’s Day tune.
 The Neale
Ed Reavy

6
8

Notes: Dedicated to the people of this quaint region of Mayo. Ed was the guest of his daugher-in-law’s
family (the Murphys) when he visited the Neale in 1969. He was charmed by the simplicity of their
life and the realization that many of his own childhood values still remained there. If his plan had
been to return to Ireland, the Neale, he felt, would have been a fitting place to settle. But the exile
seldom returns in the end, and so the Neale too becomes another part of his ultimate dream.
 The Girl From Killencare
Ed Reavy

6
8

Notes: Ed has long cherished a love for the written and spoken word. He might have been a poet if his
educational opportunities had taken a different route. One of his earlier verses talks of this lassie
from Killencare:

Though frost may come and the winter’s snow,

And bitter winds down the mountains blow,
I’ll see you here again, my dear,
When spring comes ’round to Killencare.
 The Traditional Jig
Ed Reavy

6
8

Notes: Ed took one of his favorite reels (McKenna’s) and changed it into his extraordinary little jig.
Any musician who has tried this feat knows how frustrating it can be. I’m reminded of a story
once of one who tried to change a tune and failed. All too quick to take credit for his own
latest "improvement" of an old tune, our would-be composer waited anxiously for the praise
he so confidently expected. A crafty old judge of tunes himself was only too happy to deliver
the final judgment: "Son, if you left out what you put in and put back in what you left out,
it’d be a good tune."
 Tubber Fair
Ed Reavy

6
8

Notes: Synge told us of the things of this world the world of "Red Dan Sally’s ditch and drinking
in Tubber Fair." Being a fiddler of sorts himself, John would have relished this little jig in G.
He would have thought it a fitting tune to be played at Tubber Fair.
 Beyond Ballybay
Ed Reavy

6
8

1 2

Notes: As a boy, Ed was fascinated with the thought of going to Ballybay "and beyond." He remembered
it as a lovely town, "full of grand music on a market day."
HORNPIPES
 Lad O’Beirne’s
Ed Reavy

4 3
4
3
3
1 2
3

3
3

3
3
3

3 3 3
3
1 2
3 3
3

Notes: Dedicated to Ed’s friend Lad, who recently passed on. He was one of the most talented people
to come from Ireland.
 Brigid Of Knock
Ed Reavy
3 3
4
4

Notes: Named for Ed’s wife, who came from Knock. She was part of everything he did. To me, she represents
the warmth, beauty, and love that inspires each of us to value what we are and what we came from.

Munster Grass
Ed Reavy

4
4

Notes: The other half of a set with Connemara Skies.

 Connemara Skies
Ed Reavy
3 3
4
4
3 3

3 3 3

3
Notes: It is one of Ed’s many exquisite hornpipes. Nice to pair it with Munster Grass. Both titles come
from a line in Yeats: "full of Munster grass and Connemara skies."

Tara Hill
Ed Reavy

4
4
3
3

Notes: A little-known hornpipe of Ed’s that could in time become one of his most popular compositions.
 Killala Bay
Ed Reavy
3
4 3
4

1 2

3
3
1 2

Notes: For the great bay in the west, where so many of Ed’s friends came from.

Cavan’s Own
Ed Reavy

4
4
3

3
3

Notes: Ed is truly Cavan’s own, as is this delightful dancing hornpipe.

 Quinn of Armagh
Ed Reavy
3
4
4

3 3

3
Notes: For Ed’s longtime friend Lou Quinn, who resides in Flushing, New York. He has been Ed greatest
supporter through the years. Lou helped to publish Ed’s first book of tunes in 1971.

Jim Erwin’s
Ed Reavy
3
3
4
4

Notes: To Ed’s friend, Jim Erwin, a talented dancer and dance instructor from New York. This is one
of Ed’s most popular hornpipes.
 The Gypsy’s Return
Ed Reavy

4
4

Notes: He roams the land and drinks his fill-and still returns in triumph to the one who waits patiently to share
his love. Gypsy fiddlers died young, but not before they tasted the fullness of life.

The Lone Bush

Ed Reavy
3

4
4

3 3

1 2

3
Notes: There was a bush that bloomed alone outside Ed’s farmhouse. Many times he has wondered about
that bush and why it survived when all around it perished. It has meant many things to him and has
always been a life-sustaining thought".
 Sean Quinn’s
Ed Reavy

4
4 3

3
3

3
Notes: Lou’s oldest son, a very talented musician who plays professionally in the New York area. He also
helped us produce Ed’s first volume of tunes in 1971.

The Man From Barnagrove

Ed Reavy

4
4 3
3

3 3

3
Notes: The child is the father of man. And this same child is the man from Barnagrove.
 The Doctor’s Cross
Ed Reavy

4
4
3

1 2

1 2

Notes: I’m sure he had many a cross to bear, but this title really commemorates the crossroads located
near the old country doctor’s place outside Cootehill. Ed tried to find these crossroads during his
’69 visit, but to no avail. The road had been changed some years back, and the doctor had long
since gone from the old place that Ed knew as a child.
 The Blackrock Shore
Ed Reavy

4
4

1 2

1 2

Notes: Aunt Ann used to sing the Maid of the Blackrock Shore, and she never missed a verse. Ed recalls
part of the song, but these lines stuck in his memory:

For seven long years

I waited on the maid
From the Blackrock Shore.

Ed loved the old songs that were sung by the people of his region.

Big Willie’s Wedding

Ed Reavy
3
4
4
3

Notes: Willie was a sight to behold and his wedding was not in the grand tradition. But everyone
in Barnagrove loved Big Willie.
 The Street Player
Ed Reavy

4
4
3

3
3

3 3
3

Notes: Dedicated to Tom and Jim McCafferty, the great street players who played in towns of Cavan
and nearby Monaghan in the early years of this century.

The Fair Grounds

Ed Reavy

4
4

3
Notes: For the many fairs held in the old days. The land still feels special on the grounds where those
grand old festivals were held. (A tune Ed dedicated to his old friend Tom Caulfield.)
 Reavy’s Grand Hornpipe
Ed Reavy

4
4

1 2

3
3
Notes: As excellent as the other tunes are, some feel that Ed’s reputation will stand because of the high
quality of his hornpipes. If this dance form were more fashionable today among the musicians,
Ed would certainly be much more widely acclaimed. No one has written so many exquisite hornpipes,
and the Grand Hornpipe surely is a fitting example of Ed’s talent for this rhythmical dance form.

The Road To Drum

Ed Reavy

4
4
3

3 1 2

1 2

Notes: Ed took this road once when he was young. The boys were on holiday to attend a session of music
in Drum. It was the first time Ed heard flutes and fiddles playing tunes like Trim the Velvet, Rakish
Paddy. It was an early awakening to the music for him that he never forgot.
 Kipeen Scanlon’s Hornpipe
Ed Reavy
3

4
4
3 3
3

3 3

3 3 3 3 3

3 3
Notes: Reputed to be one of the fiddlers who influenced Michael Coleman. Mike once told Ed that Kipeen
was the best player in Ireland. A sad thing it is that none of his playing was ever recorded for the
younger generation of players.
 Cavan Town
Ed Reavy

4
4

1 2

3 3

Notes: One of Ed’s favorite towns. He wanted to celebrate its memory before he had completed life’s work.
May Cavan Town live on wherever this hornpipe is played.
HIGHLANDS,
BARNDANCES
& AIRS
 Neil Of The Glenties
Ed Reavy

4
4
3 3

3 3

Notes: A Highland. Ed’s close friend, who died some time ago. He was a true traditional player who knew
how to "brighten" tunes in the right places. Ed called him "a little known master of his trade."
He was a superb player of highlands and a great Donegal fiddler.

Lovely Lough Sheelin

Ed Reavy

4
4

1 2

3 3

Notes: A Highland. Named for the lake near Ed’s home in County Cavan.
 The Fiddler’s Wife
Ed Reavy

4
4
3

3 3

3
Notes: A Highland. She deserves to be recognized-if only for the many long patient hours she waited
when tea was held for "just one more tune."

Castle Bray
Ed Reavy

3
4
4
3

3 3 3

Notes: A Highland. Ed didn’t write many highlands, but the ones he wrote are superb compositions.
And this is the best of those highlands
 Lovely Bannion

4
4

3 3

Notes: A very quaint modal highland. Ed says it is not his tune, but he has been wrong before.
It has the earmarks of a Reavy tune: surprising accidentals, unusual cadences, and a brilliant
matching of the two parts. I have never heard anyone but Ed play it.

The The Merry Wives

Ed Reavy

4
4
3

Notes: A Highland. They of the title are surely not from Windsor; and they are merry because their men are
off "flutherin’ with some old tunes," while they have the kitchen to themselves. They have some work
of their own to do, and no one will escape them in the end. When the gossiping wives make merry,
there’s hell to pay in every quarter.
 The Dances At Kinvara
Ed Reavy
3
4
4

Notes: A Barndance. Ed heard of the dances from a friend, but never visited Kinvara himself.
He has long cherished this unfulfilled wish.

Silent The Lonely Glen

Ed Reavy

2
4

Notes: This air laments the passing of the old ways and the tradition as Ed remembers it:
the old Ireland he once knew.
 Cara’s Song
Ed Reavy

2
4

3
3

Notes: An air Ed wrote for his granddaughter Cara. Cara is autistic, but has a special fondness for music.
Maybe someday his music will touch her, too.

The Corncrake
Ed Reavy
3
4 2
4 4
3
3
4 2 4
4 4 4
3
3
3 4
4 4
3

2 4
4 4

Notes: The mournful cry of this creature can still be heard in the remote country places of Ireland.
This strange air of Ed’s takes us back to an earlier age when one could wander through the
night fields of Ireland and hear the dark sigh of the solitary corncrake.