Ennis Version 'Will you come down to Limerick'

Uilleann Pipes
1

I found this abc-version of that great slip jig “Will You Come Down to Limerick?”, which is said to be the ‘Ennis-Version’. I dont have the original Version on CD.
I am wondering if Ennis really played all those heaps of f-naturals (with key)? :confused:
Seems a bit strange to me.

Does anybody have an idea or an authentic version?

Ulrich


X: 1
T:“Will You Come Down to Limerick?” (1st setting - 1st interpretation) (slipjig) 1121
C:after Mr. Ennis
N:THE MARKINGS IN BOOK ARE AMBIGUOUS AS TO WHETHER THIS SHOULD FULLY REPEAT OR PLAY PER 1121B
B:O’Neill’s Music Of Ireland (The 1850) Lyon & Healy, Chicago, 1903 edition
Z:FROM O’NEILL’S TO NOTEWORTHY, FROM NOTEWORTHY TO ABC, MIDI AND .TXT BY VINCE
BRENNAN July 2003 (HTTP://WWW.SOSYOURMOM.COM)
I:abc2nwc
M:9/8
L:1/8
F:http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/music/abc/mirror/www.sosyourmom.com/Abc-1101-1200/1121A-WillComeLimerick-1st-1st.abc 2005-12-04 12:09:04 UT
K:G
d|:cAG GDG G2d|cAG GFG Add|cAG GDG G2A|[1FGA =fed cAd:|
[2FGA =fed cAG||def gaf g2f|def gbg afd|cde =fge f2d|cde =fed cA^F|
def gaf g2f|def gbg afd|bag agf g2d|cde =fed cAG||
BGB AFA G2A|BAB GBd cBA|BGB AFA G2A|FGA =fed cA^F|
BGB AFA G2A|BAB GBd cBA|fdf ece d2A|FGA =fed cAd||

2

Hmm… “After Seamus Ennis” it says… I can’t find a recording of Seamus that has the tune, though.

I do know that Leo Rowsome recorded this on “King of the Pipers”, and it’s also on “The Pipering of Willie Clancy, Volume I”.

3

The note says “Mr. Ennis”. There was more than one. Also, the notes says its from O’Neill’s collection, which was published before Seamus was born. I can’t find any recording of SE playing this.

djm

4

Also called “Kitty Come Down From Limerick” or “Kitty Come Down to Limerick.” Nice versions available under those names on recordings by Tommy Peoples (The Quiet Glen) and Tim Collins (Dancing on Silver). I know I’ve got a nice piping setting of it somewhere, I hear it in my mind being played on a flat set, maybe Ronan Browne or possibly Willie Clancy but can’t dredge it out of my memory.

5

The Ennis in question is John Ennis, a Kildare piper, who wasn’t a relation of Seamus’s. His son Tom (the Young Tom Ennis the jig is named after) made many recordings but not of this tune. These Fnaturals may be editorial impositions - perhaps fiddlers played them but the pipers didn’t - one of O’Neill’s musicians, Barney Delaney, recorded the Cook in the Kitchen but without all the Fnats fiddlers throw in, for instance. Tom Ennis also recorded this tune (with melodeon and fiddle) and he dispensed with the Fnats as well.
I do have a recording of Seamus playing Will You Come Down (not commercially available), structurally I believe it’s close to this version but Seamus didn’t play the Fnats. Tommy Reck did, however, Tommy had many tunes with true Fnaturals in them, where Seamus or Willie Clancy would generally slide up into a F#. I think Pat Sky said here that Tommy half-holed those notes…Rowsome almost always just played an F# instead.
Patsy Touhey also recorded this tune twice - calling it the Munster Gimlet. F#s for him too. He and Rowsome would also slide up into the F# but not quite so heavily as the above players.

6

‘Ennis’ in O’Neill’s is piper and flute player John Ennis of Kildare and Chicago. He is Tom Ennis’s father.

7

Thanks Kevin & Jim! That makes sense.

8

Hah, in fact it was Tommy Reck that I had in my head playing this tune…thanks for that, Kevin, it would have been bugging me for hours.

9

Yes, you are correct DJM…

My apologies here, I’d misread the note, which (now) clearly says “After Mr. Ennis”.