I just saw Sherlock Holmes which was a quite entertaining action film with great special effects. Of course it took place in London around the late 1800s… strange to be using traditional Irish music with some whistling… a fellow singing a jig along with a whistle.
I noticed that too! (both the whistle, and the oddness of it being ITM in England). I think perhaps people not native to the UK(including myself up until about a year ago) tend to just lump all of Ireland, England, Scotland, etc together when it comes to music, seeing as it’s all kind of the same geographical location.
Is it Irish music in the movie? Pennywhistles were common in London, too. Just ask Whistling Billy. As were jigs, I imagine. Not that movies are, like, you know, accurate necessarily.
Whistling Billy could often be heard playing his penny whistle whilst riding a penny farthing to the shops to buy a penny dreadful. The expression “penny for the guy” was originally a request for passers by to provide a whistle rather than a coin. Girls were christened Penny not because they were cheap, but tall and thin.
Infact ‘Penny’ is derived from the middle English word ‘Pfennel’ which its self was derived from the Norman word for whistle
The tune/song was Rocky Road to Dublin. I watched the credits to make sure. Good movie imp.
the credits listed Rocky Road to Dublin performed by the Dubliners.
according to the director… the songs were included as a tribute to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Irish Heritage. His father was Scottish… but his mother was Mary Foley and from Ireland. Hence the veiled tribute to Sir Arthur.
be well,
jim
Absolutely. Will Kempe’s Jig is still played (it’s in the Bill Ochs tutor, for example) and Kempe’s other claim to fame was his membership in Shakespeare’s company of players. He died in 1603. He’s also remembered for dancing his jig from London to Norwich. English traditional music doesn’t have many reels (which is why the Stradling Brothers’ Old Swan Band called their first record “No Reels” to assert it’s englishness) but there’s no shortage of jigs.
Kemp danced to his own pipe-and-tabor accompaniment, and that’s close enough to whistle. In fact, I own a Generation tabor pipe, which is a standard D whistle with the holes in different places.
Don’t forget that the Clarke whistle was the invention of an englishman, and has always been made in England, not Ireland.
Edited: a slip jig might be more irish than english, and Rocky Road.. in particular is pretty closely associated with Ireland. However, there’s been a substantial Irish population resident in London for centuries; particularly so after the famine years of the 1850s. It’s likely that London was the world’s second or third largest Irish city (after New York & Dublin, perhaps) at the time
London was and is stuffed with Irish people, so it wouldn’t have been in the least unusual hearing ITM any more than hearing Banghra in the streets now.
“The Secret of Roan Inish” (my fav) is full of nice ITM and whistle tunes as well as “Far and Away” with Tom Cruise, “Waking Ned Devine”, “Matchmaker”(Janeane Garofalo), “Rob Roy”, “Bravehart”, “Titanic” and dozens of others!
Any favorites?
I thought the music went fine with the movie. For those of you who haven’t seen it, it’s in the context of a barenuckle boxing scene (wouldn’t be a Guy Ritchie movie without one). Makes sense enough.
Seachd, The Inaccessible Pinnacle http://www.seachd.com/
just a wonderful movie with great music, incredible scenery… most of it in gaelic though but has english subtitles, loved it. Soundtrack can be heard via the musicplayer on the top of the page, unfortunately no Soundtrack-CD out yet…
Happy New Year all 
Brigitte
P.S. on 06.01. I just ordered another copy from Amazon.co.uk as our one - which was on loan, stays permanently now with the person. www.amazon.co.uk offers the movie-DVD for a little over 8 GBP at the moment, incredibly little so thought I mention this in case someone might be interested in it…
Couldn’t resist reviving this thread. Just finished watching this and I completely agree with Brigitte. If you liked the Secret of Roan Inish, you’ll like this one too.
Get a sample of the music here:
http://www.inaccessiblepinnacle.com/pages/music_soundtrack.html
Not to mention “The Boys and the Girl from County Clare” with none other than Andrea Corr. A terrific movie.
Oh, I think I misread the premise of the OP as: movies which depict whistle players playing on-screen in the film, not just soundtrack music which includes the sound of a whistle in the score. The latter seems ubiquitous nowadays; the former not so much. Maybe I misunderstood.
I don’t recall actually seeing whistles whistling in most of the films mentioned that I’ve seen. Yes, in Boys (and Girl) from County Clare, I think. But only briefly, and not by Andrea. :sniff:
Seachd looks interesting, in its genre. Thanks for the tip. 