Sunday 19 July 2026
Tune of the Day: A Whack at the Whigs
Traditional Irish slip jig
One of the earliest appearances of this tune is in P.M. Haverty's One Hundred Irish Airs, published in New York in 1858, under the title “Leather the Wig” (meaning to thresh, or thin out, a wig). The hairpiece, however, symbolizes the (now defunct) British party of the Whigs, as is made apparent in the more recent, playful title “A Whack at the Whigs”, first found in O'Neill's The Dance Music of Ireland (Chicago, 1907).