I heard “Big Pat’s Reel” at a session in Gus O’Connor’s Pub in Doolin, played by my friend Christophe, a great fiddle player and harpist from France. I was also familiar with this tune through the recording “Waifs & Strays” by Michael Hynes and Denis Liddy.
X:1
T:Big Pat’s Reel
R:reel
M:4/4
K:Emin
|:BGEF G2BG|G2AG FDFA|BGEF G2Bd|1 gefd e2dc:|2 gefd ~e3f||
~g3a bgag|eaag fdef|g2ga bgag|fedf e2ef|
g3a bgag|eaag fdef|g2ge ~f3d|egfd e2dc||
This reel was written by John Nolan and was originally called “The Boogie Reel”. I learned it from Terry Bingham’s album, on which he calls it “The Durrow Reel”.
“The Heather Breeze” is one of the most common reel in sessions across Ireland. It is a very old tune which I have learned through sessions, but I associate it with Micho Russell and his brothers Packie and Gussie. They recorded it on the album “The Russell Family”.
I learned Kitty Hayes’ Hornpipe from the great album “Rooska Hill” by Tony O’Connell and Éamonn O’Riordan. Kitty Hayes recorded this tune herself as Junior Crehan’s. I couldn’t find this hornpipe in the book of Junior Crehan’s compositions, There is howver a reel called Crehan’s Banbhs in the book which shares a lot of similarities with this tune.
