I plan on playing my whistle on the street for tips in order to get a friend money to take a bus to come see me. I was looking for some new music to learn and play, and was asked by a (different) friend, who was reading over my shoulder, what the word “Planxty” meant (Planxty Browne, Planxty Connor, Planxty Dale Wisely, Planxty Fanny Powers, Planxty George Brabazon, Planxty Hewlett, Planxty Irwin). I didn’t know. Little help…
There’s a recent thread on the Irish trad board where a few of us speculate on the origins of this term. You’ll see Peter Laban has a suggestion and I have another but neither of us would claim to know for sure, nor would anybody else.
Sorry, I could have been a bit more helpful than that. What we do know is that a planxty is a piece composed in honour of the person named, probably usually a patron of the composer.
A friend of mine did some research and found this definition on a site associated with the band Planxty. Sorry, I don’t have the URL.
“The name refers to a tune composed for a patron, particularly associated with O’Carolan.”
There is actually a more common meaning to the term Planxty: It is the odd feeling/taste on your tongue in the back of the mouth when, after a late gig, hung-over and smelling of smoke, you wake at six am to the sounds of your girl friend throwing all your stuff in a box and yelling at you to get the f*** out.
Who hasn’t run into bleary-eyed musicians on the way to work: “Hey, man, got a buck to spare for a bit of brew? I gotta get rid of this planxty…”
On 2002-10-22 12:13, Bloomfield wrote:
There is actually a more common meaning to the term Planxty: It is the odd feeling/taste on your tongue in the back of the mouth when, after a late gig, hung-over and smelling of smoke, you wake at six am to the sounds of your girl friend throwing all your stuff in a box and yelling at you to get the f*** out.Who hasn’t run into bleary-eyed musicians on the way to work: “Hey, man, got a buck to spare for a bit of brew? I gotta get rid of this planxty…”
We Aussies are strict traditionalists when it comes to ‘planxty’. This doesn’t mean we don’t have a phrase for the Bloomfield phenomenon, if I may call it that. We would say ‘My mouth feels like the bottom of a cocky’s cage.’ (A cocky is a cockatoo, a kind of crested parrot.) Our girlfriends don’t sympathise either. Strange, that.
Here’s a definition, pasted from an on-line glossary:
planxty 1. In the Irish tradition, a tune composed in honor of a patron (they knew where their bread was buttered). A typical name would be “Planxty O’Donnell”. The word is said to have originated with Carolan, Turlough.
And here’s the site where I got that, it’s got a ton of stuff:
http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/traditional-music/ency/PQR.htm
Some time ago I read that the word originated from the same root as Plaintive (French: Pleindre). The fact that I read it doesn’t make it true, though.
On 2002-10-22 18:52, E = Fb wrote:
Some time ago I read that the word originated from the same root as Plaintive (French: Pleindre). The fact that I read it doesn’t make it true, though.
‘Plaindre’ would get closer to truth. 
Ah, this makes my day! Thanks for this unique chance of correcting someone else’s spelling on this board 
–
Whistling Maurice
This is from a friend of mine e-mailed some more info regarding the definition of the word. Peter Laban came up with the same thing on the Traditional Music Forum so maybe it is the real definition of the word. It sounds reasonable to me.
As far as I know, traveling musicians like O’Carolan often composed a tune in honor of a household who put them up for a few nights, usually as a means of pay or to say thank you.
The tune generally received the name planxty and whatever the family’s name was. So ‘Planxty Irwin’ would be named for the Irwin family or Patriarch.
Slan
-Paul
[ This Message was edited by: paul on 2002-10-26 09:51 ]
On 2002-10-26 09:48, Paul wrote:
This is from a friend of mine e-mailed some more info regarding the definition of the word. Peter Laban came up with the same thing on the Traditional Music Forum so maybe it is the real definition of the word. It sounds reasonable to me.As far as I know, traveling musicians like O’Carolan often composed a tune in honor of a household who put them up for a few nights, usually as a means of pay or to say thank you.
The tune generally received the name planxty and whatever the family’s name was. So ‘Planxty Irwin’ would be named for the Irwin family or Patriarch.
Slan
-Paul
[ This Message was edited by: paul on 2002-10-26 09:51 ]
I would wager O’Carolan also wrote the occasional `Pogue Mahone´dedicated to less than charitable patriarchs Mike
[ This Message was edited by: mike.r on 2002-10-26 15:47 ]