Tune of the Day: Will You Come Down to Limerick?
In Irish Folk Music: A Fascinating Hobby, early-20th-century Chicago-based collector Francis O'Neill remarks:
An uncommonly fine tune of this class [i.e. slip jig], in three strains, obtained from John Ennis, is “Will You Come Down to Limerick?” Simpler versions are known to old-time musicians of Munster and Connacht, and in Chicago. Ennis had no monopoly of it, for it was well known to Delaney, Early, and McFadden. As an old-time Slip Jig it seems to have been called “The Munster Gimlet,” a singularly inapt title; but when it came into vogue by its song name, we are unable to say.
John Ennis was a Chicago Police patrolman, piper and flute player, originally from County Kildare, Ireland.
One of the earliest appearances of the tune is found in the second volume James S. Kerr's Merry Melodies, published in Glasgow around 1880.