Friday 13 October 2017
Tune of the Day: The Roving Blade
Traditional Irish slip jig
This simple 9/8-time jig is taken from Chicago police officer Francis O'Neill's collection Waifs and Strays of Gaelic Melody, published in 1922. O'Neill's source for this tune was the Rice-Walsh manuscript, a collection of music from the repertoire of Jeremiah Breen, a blind fiddler from North Kerry, Ireland.
This tune is apparently unrelated to the more famous folk song “The Newry Highwayman”, which is also known as “The Roving Blade”.