Saturday 8 April 2017
Tune of the Day: Larry Grogan
Traditional Irish jig
The earliest appearance of this tune in print is in Daniel Wright's Compleat Collection of Celebrated Country Dances, vol. 2, published in London in 1742. The air was subsequently employed in several ballad operas, starting with Jack the Gyant Queller (1749), Kane O'Hara's Midas (1764), and Arne's Love in a Village (1795). The popular melody can be found in a number of musicians' copybooks of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, on both sides of the Atlantic.
Lawrence Grogan of Johnstown Castle (County Wexford, Ireland) was a famous 18th-century “gentleman piper” and composer. He was the first performer on the The Irish Uillean (or Union) Bagpipe of whom there is historical record.