Saturday 17 July 2021
Tune of the Day: Shandon Bells
Traditional Irish jig
The earliest known appearance of this tune in print is in Francis O'Neill's collection Music of Ireland: 1850 Melodies, published in Chicago in 1903.
The tune is named after a bell tower in the city of Cork, Ireland. According to O'Neill, “No double jig ever introduced in Chicago met with such immediate popularity among musicians and dancers as Shandon Bells.” It seems that his source for the tune, fiddler Edward Cronin, had no title for it, so O'Neill came up with an original one.