Monday 12 February 2024
Tune of the Day: I Do Not Incline
Traditional Irish jig
The title of this jig is presumably the opening lines to a song, which seems however to have been lost to time.
The earliest appearance of the tune is in the third volume of Edward Bunting's The Ancient Music of Ireland, published in Dublin in 1840. Bunting had obtained the tune from “J. McCracken, Esq., Belfast”, in 1810. Captain John McCracken was a seafarer, as well as a rope and cloth manufacturer, and associated with many of Belfast's leading philanthropic ventures. He notably established the Marine Charitable Society, a charity into which sailors could pay regular contributions and receive benefits in sickness and old age.