I’m looking for some information about the Galtee Reel. Pat Mitchell plays it on his record, and it’s in DMWC. I longer no have liner notes for PM’s album, so I don’t know what he says about it. I don’t seem to have any recordings of WC playing it; are there any?
Apparently it has been recorded by Mike Rafferty as The Dangerous Reel and also appears on Michael Gorman: The Sligo Champion (Clancy plays on this record it seems).
It’s a tune that was popular in Clare and still crops up every now and again. I learned it off Martin Rochford even though I knew Pat’s version at the time. i think it is more or less safe to associate it with the Dorans, both Martin and Willie would likely have learned it off Felix (I think I have a recording of Felix playing it but am not completely sure). Micho Russell used to play it (I have recordings of himself playing it on his own and in duet with Rochford).
Peter, exactly what I was looking for. Thanks, Eric
Looked up the Mitchell sleeve notes, he too originally learned it off Felix so I was thinking in the right direction.
As for Willie Clancy recordings, the fact it is transcribed in DMWC answers the question. It’s part of the recording made during the 1972 NPU visit to Willie, the last recording before he died.
The tape cuts short on my copy of that - mine doesn’t have Willie playing that tune…
Michael Gorman’s nephew, also Michael, plays that tune on the M.G. CDs, on the flute. He was a really great fluter, too, I’d listen to a whole album of him anyday.
I admit to lifting that information from the acknowledgements in the book, maybe it’s a different recording from the same years I do have the recording though. 
Neither does mine. I wonder what else is missing from my recording of Dec 72. Would someone who has it took a quick look at this list and see if I’m missing more than this one tune.
Banish Misfortune
Humours of Ballyloughlin
Banish Misfortune
Ard An Bothair
Old hag in Kiln
Yellow Wattle
An Buchaill Dreoite fling
An Buchaill Dreoite
Trip We took
Boyne Hunt
Cameronian
nameless air
Nora Criona piece
Nora Criona jig
Mo Paistin Fionn
Wow, talk about timing!
Aaron Walsh was visiting my home just a few days’ ago, and he played the Galtee Reel, which I recorded so I can learn it later on.
He said he’d gotten the tune from Patrick Hutchinson.
No Brian, the tune Aaron learned was the Galtee Rangers (also called Callaghan’s). The Galtee reel is a different kettle of fish altogether.
That’s the lot for me as well. Mine had Mo Paistin Fionn spread over sides A and B, so I digitially spliced 'em together. Never have gotten the hang of that tune, though, too intricate for my dull brain. Willie at his most brilliant.
Y’All know that it’s the same tune as the jig Statia Donnelly’s? Statia was the mother of Waterford fiddler Jimmy Power, who can be heard playing it as a waltz on the CD Round the House and Mind the Dresser.
Bill Ochs told me he played this tape so much it wore out.
Yow, what were you - a fly on the wall? 
You’re right - it WAS the Galtee Ranger that he played!
(hearing the tune from ‘The Twilight Zone’.. …
But how did you know? 
Just a lucky guess, I guess…
Just to add to the mess, Debbie Quigley tells me its actually “The Galtee Ranges”, not “Rangers”, in reference to a range of mountians (hills, really) in Ireland. I wonder if this is one of those “The Virginia” vs “The Virginian” tune naming fluffs? 
djm
The Galtee rangers is in all sources always called the Galtee Rangers. Ranges are for keeping the kitchen warm and to brew the tea on. The Virgina is always the virgin?..nya.
it’s called Fiannóglaigh na nGeailtí in Irish, i.e. definitely “rangers” in a military sense, but whether that precedes the English or is (Breathnach’s?) translation of the “wrong” title, I don’t know. I always associated it with the Galtee Mountain Boy and the Flying Column, but who knows?
(in CRE II Breathnach’s source was Denis Murphy and it’s under the title Fiannóglaigh na nGeailtí: The Galtee Rangers)
Breathnach’s work was all done in English first, and translated to Irish after the fact, much like O’Neill’s. It was the only way Breathnach could get someone to finance publication. Paul de Grae translated them all back to English again. I believe the translations are available on the web somewhere, but my link is out of date.
djm
Great link, Peter. I had printed them all out a while ago, so I haven’t kept my links up to date.
djm