Saturday 10 December 2022
Tune of the Day: Young Francis Mooney
Traditional Irish jig
The earliest appearance of this jig is in Francis O'Neill's celebrated 1903 collection Music of Ireland. The title honors O'Neill's first-born grandson. When he retired from office in 1905 at the age of 57, there remained only four surviving daughters of his large family of five boys and five girls. Julia Ann O'Neill (1879-1971) married James Mooney in 1900. O'Neill delighted in his “stalwart grandsons,” as he wrote, “the Mooney brothers, Francis, James, William and Phillip, who have made their mark in the field of college athletics”.