Whither art thou, Julia Delaney?

[Redwolf]

I want to learn the reel Julia Delaney as it’s played on the Kilkenny Road CD. I looked it up at JC’s Tunefinder, where there are A LOT of instances of it (most of them identical), but none of them are the same tune as the one on the CD! Can someone help me find it? I really do best when I can use a combination of ear and printed music, especially on these faster tunes.

Redwolf

[glauber]

Try this one:
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display.php/589
you may have to register and login to get all the goodies.

[Lorenzo]

The tune Julia Delaney is nearly always played in Dm by fiddlers. Whistle players nearly always play along in sessions on a C whistle using the Em fingering. The notation below is right for the tune. Try it first on a D whistle and you’ll find you have to ½-hole some notes to stay on pitch. Staying in the same key, switch to the C whistle, and all your frustrations are gone!

[glauber]

@Lorenzo

The tune Julia Delaney is nearly always played in Dm by fiddlers.

D dorian actually. True D minor would have at least a few C#s, and all the Cs here are natural. Also notice that there are no Bs, but if there were, they’d probably be natural too, not phlat. So you can take that Bb from the key signature, if you want.

This is a good easy tune to practice the Fs if you have a keyed flute. It’s always a good one to surprise the fiddlers (they never expect you to play it). Or transpose it one step up and play it in E dorian in a C whistle, like Lorenzo says. I think it was made popular by the first Bothy Band album, and there’s a jazzy arrangement in the Paddy Molloney/Sean Potts “Tin Whistles” album.

I think Julia was a relative of Cap O’Neill (sister-in-law), but the version in O’Neills is different, in D major.

Here’s some info from the “Fiddler’s Companion”:

@fiddler's companion

Capatin Francis O’Neill named the tune in honor of his sister-in-law, wife of uilleann piper Bernard (“Barney”) Delaney. Julia was the sister of O’Neill’s wife Anna, both hailing from Feakle, County Clare. The Delaneys received much assistance over the years from O’Neill, who may even have introduced the couple to each other. Barney had a job on the Chicago police force, courtesy of the Captain, and was guided in profitable real estate investments by him. Barney and Julia retired to Ocean Springs, Maryland, however Julia died a few years later. Barney subsequently moved to Havana, Cuba, but eventually feel ill and returned to Chicago where he died in July, 1923. O’Neill apparently greatly admired Bernard Delaney’s music, but considered him ungrateful for all the help he had given him; the piper would not, for example, teach students or record cylinders for O’Neill on demand. Delaney is buried alone in Mt. Olivet cemetary about 100 yards from the O’Neill mausoleum. Joyce (1909) prints a version of the tune as “Glenloe,” in the dorian mode with a different turn. O’Neill himself printed another version in his Waifs and Strays of Gaelic Melody under the title “The Groves of Mount Talbot” (No. 324) collected from a John Kelly of San Francisco. A minor key version of the reel may be “Sporting Molly.”

[brewerpaul]

I used to have a patient named Julia Delaney and one day she came to the office at the same time as another patient of mine named Joan Madden. Really.

[glauber]

@brewerpaul

I used to have a patient named Julia Delaney and one day she came to the office at the same time as another patient of mine named Joan Madden. Really.

It must have been hard, not being able to tell them why you were snickering.

[brewerpaul]

@glauber

@brewerpaul

I used to have a patient named Julia Delaney and one day she came to the office at the same time as another patient of mine named Joan Madden. Really.

It must have been hard, not being able to tell them why you were snickering.

No problem at all: I told both of them, and they thought it was pretty funny too. I told “my” Joan Madden about Cherish the Ladies, and she went out and bought an album of theirs and loved it.

[Redwolf]

@brewerpaul

@glauber

@brewerpaul

I used to have a patient named Julia Delaney and one day she came to the office at the same time as another patient of mine named Joan Madden. Really.

It must have been hard, not being able to tell them why you were snickering.

No problem at all: I told both of them, and they thought it was pretty funny too. I told “my” Joan Madden about Cherish the Ladies, and she went out and bought an album of theirs and loved it.

Wouldn’t it have been hilarious if Kitty McGee and Fanny Power had come in at the same time!

That’s great! (and how nice that she went out and bought an album!)

Redwolf