Tune of the Day: Rory O'More
Roger “Rory” O’More (c. 1600–1655) was a minor Irish noble and the titular King of Laois, who rose to fame as the scourge of the English during the reign of Charles I.
This jig was composed by Irish songwriter, composer, novelist and painter Samuel Lover (1797–1868), and became the “hit tune” of 1837. Although initially a dance tune (a popular Scottish country dance is called “Rory O'More”), it was absorbed as a common march in the Victorian era British army, and can be found in martial manuscript books dating from the 1850s. Overseas, in America, it also caught popular fancy and appeared in Elias Howe's The Complete Preceptor for the Accordeon (1843), surviving and achieving some longevity in its initial genre, i.e. as a country dance tune.