Heard this tune played by Pat Mitchell in his recording and got intrested but canno’t find enough inforamation about this tune. Found few therads and an old recording at the famous Ross’s page.
What kind of tune/song is this? Why a air part between tune (?) part? Is there a version that Pat learned his version from? Same kind of tune like the Fox Chase?
http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=7218&highlight=mairseail
Mici ‘Cumba’ O SUilleibheann’s Gol na mBan san ar is the recording Pat based his version on. A descriptive piece. Breandan Breathnach wrote extensively on it, in Ceol. Possibly the article made it into ‘The man and his music’.
Yep, three of Breathnach’s articles on Mairseail Alaisdruim from Ceol were reprinted in The Man and His Music".
(available from NPU)
Thank you for the information. I will put my order tonight.
Is this the same thing,the fragment of the tune that can be heard here?
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/music/index.html or is there a full version recording left? Or is there the dot of the tune in the Breathnach article?
Sorry for my ignorance,but can you give me some information about the Ceol? How many volume it had, when was the first and the last published? Was it a booklet like the current An Piobaire? Is it possible to get in touch with the articles except the The man&his music book?
Maybe all of the answer is in the Breathnach book,but i would be glad if I could know before the book arrive a week or a two later 
Thanks in advance
Makoto
Ronan Browne plays this tune or some of it, on the Lyric FM recording:
Ceol was a journal Breathnach published, mostly in the 60s and early 80s. Not available now, Man and His Music has a good few articles sourced from it. Between Pat/Ronan/Mici’s recordings and Breandan’s articles you’ll know about as much about the tune as can be had.
An interesting part of the article are the printed versions, such as Canon Goodman’s (also available in the book Tunes of the Munster Pipers), which show the spoken parts, where the piper announces things like the death of Alaisdrum and the identities of the women who lament him. These are inaudible on Mici’s recording. It’s akin to the spoken parts Felix Doran used in the Fox Chase - “A horn for the hounds,” “Dogs on scent,” “The gander.” Must’ve been very entertaining.
Wasn’t Ellen Galvin’s version in some book as well? The full transcription of Gol na mBan played by Mici Cumba appeared in AP so you may be able to find it through the NPU archive, it was re-printed in Ceol and Phiobaire. BB articles had notes for other versions.
I’ve only heard the march portion of the tune on recordings. I do recall once seeing a transcription of the entire piece with the “old women’s lament” and all of that other stuff. So, altogether, it’s a descriptive piece like Nora Crionna, The Fox Chase, etc.
I think the march component is the oldest part and my personal theory is that it’s the remains of an Irish piece of ceol mor meant to have been played on the piob mhor. The modal schemes and the cadences of the tune are very piobaireachd-esque.
I think the Alasdair in question was Alasdair Colla MacDhomnaill, aka Colla Ciotach (so he was probably a lefty), who died in Ireland in…I think it was the battle of Cnoc na nDos (???) in Cork, but I can’t remember the details. Probably quite an old tune, anyways.
Nora Criona, The Humours of Glin and such are Pieces, without the descriptive, Fox chase is one of the descriptive ones.
Whoops. You’re right.
I’ve always thought Nora Crionna would sound kinda nice arranged for string quartet. Maybe as the soundtrack to some artsy, surrealist film…'Scuse my perversions…
You’re correct about the title, SP, Breathnach said that Mici was mistaken in calling the piece Gol na mBan, which is used for a group of tunes about the Battle of Aughrim. Seamus Ennis used that title for the Eagle’s Whistle/O’Donovan’s March. Incidentally I recently purchased the CD version of Richard Henebry’s Handbook of Irish Music and he describes the Eagle’s Whistle as a descriptive piece - little chicks pining for food and stuff like that. You get that kind of…anthropomorphization? whimsy? with any title with animals in it - Geese in the Bog, Dogs Among the Bushes.
Denis Brooks was talking about Mairseail Alaisdruim’s warpipe features when he was in Seattle. Haven’t seen a transription of Mrs. Galvin’s playing of it, did she play just the march? It’s common enough in tunebooks.
An article from Ceol, courtesy of a French flute player.
The other recording of Alasdrum I know is on Dickie Deegan’s “Music of the Irish Celts”
Ross
Thank you for the valuable informations.
I found the dots of this tune in the old An Piobere. Compare it to the Pat Mitchell’s recording,Pat’s version has one more part at the top of the tune,which is not in the dot’s from the Mici Cumba’s playing.
Anyway thank you for the inputs.Lot and lot to learn from the past 
Makoto
Pat kicked his version off with the version of the march he got from Willie Clancy.
Wow! Thanks for the information.I found the tune in the “The Dance Music of Willie Clancy” book.
I kinda remember… refresh my memory. I think I wanted learn the tune after Denis held forth on the tune… Haven’t though
It’s one of those old tunes which likely had a low C (in UP terminology) originally, when they removed the foot joint (which gave a low C) from the pastoral chanter they simply moved the low C up to a middle C. Listen to a GHB rendition of Caber Feidh, then listen to Rakish Paddy, which has the C up an octave from where it was originally. Lots of old tunes that show that - Walls of Liscarroll, Repeal of the Union. Those two both go up into the second octave a bit of course - perhaps they were originally pastoral pipe tunes, or they were expanded from original warpipe settings.
Another good example is Rory O’Moore, there was a setting printed early in the 19th century that had low Cs, but after that it was printed with the middle C.
Mairseail Alaisdruim also has movements in the melody that sound very well on the pipes, and are easy to execute; they take a bit of practice on the fiddle to make them snappy.
Alistrum March
A big Battle took place at Knocknanuss near Kanturk in Co Cork in on the 11th November 1647, between the forces of the Parliament led by Lord Inchaquin and the forces of the confederate army led by Lord Taffte who had the assistance of a Scottish General named Allister MacDonnell, also known as Alistrum. During the Battle, in which the Confederate Army was defeated, Alistrum was killed. The Munster poets had composed a march for the battle called the Alistrum March which is regularly played at Bruach Na Carraige and followed by The Alistrum jig which is also associated with that battle.And the Irish so witless, so brave, and unheeding
Were fighting on both sides, and brother slew brother
One fighting for Cromwell, for Charles the other