Sunday 22 June 2025
Tune of the Day: The Humors of Glynn
Traditional Irish jig
This tune first appeared, without a title, in the large mid-19th-century music manuscript collection of County Cork cleric and uilleann piper James Goodman. As “The Humors of Glynn”, it was included in Francis O'Neill's Dance Music of Ireland (Chicago, 1907).
The tune was an especial favorite with the Scots national poet Robert Burns, who used it for his song “Their groves o' sweet myrtle let foreign lands reckon”.
There is a small village called Glynn in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. However, according to folklorist Peter Kennedy, the title of this jig is generally thought to refer to An Gleann (often called Glin or Glen), a village in County Limerick on the south shore of the river Shannon, almost opposite Knock.