Wednesday 3 December 2025
Tune of the Day: Three Halfpence A Day
Traditional Irish jig
This jig is taken from Francis O'Neill's collection The Dance Music of Ireland, published in 1907. O'Neill obtained this version of the tune from the manuscripts of Timothy Downing, a gentleman farmer of Tralibane, County Cork, who taught O'Neill the rudiments of the flute when the latter was a boy during the 1860s.
At one time, three halfpence a day was referred to as the common wage for an ordinary laborer or soldier.