Ay caray, yikes.
from a guy in Spain with a bag on his head
El saco de vergüenza …
OK, the guy doesn’t claim to be an experienced player. Vale vale …
I’m not sure what Cathal McConnell intended originally, I don’t have that particular BotL recording. But eliminating the F-nat variation seems like a reasonable folk thing to do. Paddy and Bridget (Isao and Masako) play the simplified setting on their recording (the 2nd one).
It’s not often I disagree with The Guru, but I do here. I don’t know an original BOTL recording - I had it from the Altan album with Frankie Kennedy playing it on flute. Sure, playing the B music the same both times would be musically satisfactory and internally valid if one had not heard it with the B2 Fnats, but having done so, and assuming they are part of the original composition, not someone else’s later addition/variation, they seem to me to be literally essential - to omit them betrays the tune. And dang it, it’s not like they’re difficult or a major technical challenge to include! Playing the B music the same both times is IMO both a bad cop-out and just plain wrong.
Moreover, if the Fnats are original, to propagate or condone a bowdlerised version seems, well, at best ‘unfortunate’.
But that’s my point exactly, Jem. The tune was written by Cathal McConnell (with fiddler Séamus Quinn), and recorded by Cathal and the Boys of the Lough on their album “In the Tradition”.
According to the Altan liner notes: “It was Belfast flute player Gary Hastings and Ciarán Curran who first brought this lovely tune to our attention.”
I can understand respecting the composer’s original intent as one approach. In this case I have no idea what that was, not having heard Cathal’s own setting. And fair play to Altan if they’ve improved on the original and created an indispensable F-nat earworm. 
But there’s nothing sacred about Altan’s setting of someone else’s tune. Or anyone’s setting of any tune, really.
Cathal McConnell plays this tune on whistle (‘In The Tradition’, Boys of the Lough) with bars 1-8 of the B-part simply repeated intstead of continuing to bars 9-16. I don’t know whether that is the ‘original’ version or if he just simplified it slighlty to make it more whistle friendly. He’d be entitled to - he half wrote it, after all.
This a quote from the session.org. Seems the fnats are an Altan thing. Nice but not original. So no dissing the Spanish bagboy except for speeding
And, Jem, I found another video of someone doing this tune on a flute. Well played, too ! With the fnats included.
I don’t know whether that is the ‘original’ version or if he just simplified it slighlty to make it more whistle friendly
Somehow I doubt he would have had to simplify it to make it playable, he’s fairly handy at playing the whistle you know.
That said, while I always thought the f nat section was a bit contrived, it doesn’t actually appear extremely problematic when you give it a go.
Fair enough. And good to clear up. I did allow the possibility, but pass the egg-wipes!
Mind, I have no doubt whatever that Cathal would readily and blithely play the Fnats if he so wished. He’s a genius whistler.
(Cross-posted with MrG.)
Funny …I’d ignored this thread because it was an issue that had never come up for me. But then the past couple of days I’ve had a song stuck in my head, Art Garfunkel singing Jimmy Webb’s “All I Know”. So I’m playing along on a low D (yeah, the song is in C but my C whistles were in another room and I thought the song called for a low whistle vibe anyway) and sure enough I enough here comes a natural F. Took a few passes at it, but half-holing it isn’t the hardest thing to do with a whistle.
I play this with no f naturals and learned it from the Cathal whistle book with cassettes. Though that is far from conclusive as it was years and years ago and they may have been in there and I eliminated them over the years. Anyone have the book to check? I also remember the tune having another composer credit as well as Cathal Anyone know his {helper}?
Ah Seamus Quinn should have read the thread closer