Tuesday 28 October 2025
Tune of the Day: The Yellow Wattle
Traditional Irish jig
This jig is taken from Francis O'Neill's collection The Dance Music of Ireland, published in Chicago in 1907. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th strains correspond to the version found in the mid-19th-century manuscript by uilleann piper and collector James Goodman. The first strain, seemingly not replicated in any other versions, is reminiscent of the first strain of O'Neill's “Church Hill”. O'Neill identifies his source as fiddler and patrolman Timothy Dillon, originally from County Kerry, who may have adapted that part and prefixed it to a three-part setting of “The Yellow Wattle”.