This beautiful song air—said to be by Turlough Carolan—is a lament composed on the death, in 1713, of this soldier, lawyer, poet and man of affairs from county Sligo who was one of the most distinguished Irishmen of his day. We will examine a setting that appeared in the first ever collection of Irish music printed in Ireland, in 1724. We will learn to play a shorter setting found in a field transcription in Edward Bunting’s MSS from the 1790s, incorporating some melodic ornaments using historical Irish harp fingerings. 

Part 1 of a two-part session