The Old Pigeon On The Gate

reel

Key signature: Gmajor

Submitted on April 16th 2003 by Kenny.

This tune has been added to 33 tunebooks.

Also known as Cathal McConnell's.

Recordings of a tune by this name:

• A Fathomless Sea by Mooncoin
• Black Black Black by Cran
• Down The Ivory Stairs by Padraic O'Reilly
• Driven by Donall Donnelly And Brian Hanlon
• Echoes Of Erin by Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann Concert Tour 2006
• Familiar Footsteps by Dezi Donnelly
• Gan Bua by Gan Bua
• Jane Blair And William MacMorran by Jane MacMorran
• Last Leaves by Malinky
• Otherworld by Lunasa
• The Blue CD by Irish Session Tunes
• The First Month Of Summer by Buttons And Bows
• Top Of Coom by Conal Ó'Gráda
• Toss The Feathers by Mountain Dew
• Turning by Knot Fibb'n

X: 1
T: Old Pigeon On The Gate, The
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Gmaj
|: dG G2 dGeG | d2 de dcAB | cF F2 cF F2 | (3Bcd ed cABc |
dg g2 dgeg | d2 de dcAG | FGAd fdeg | fdcA G4 :|
|: dggf gagf | dg g2 bgaf | dffe fgfe | df f2 afgf |
dggf gagf | dg g2 bgaf | dcde fdeg | fdcA G4 :|

Old Pigeon On The Gate

Again, a tune which seems to be favoured by wind- instrument players. My source was Finbar Furey, and it was also on a record featuring Tommy Keane, who played it on whistle. In both of these recordings, it was given the above title. More recent recordings, by Conal O'Grada ("Top Of Coom" LP), and "Arcady" ("After The Ball") have listed it as "Cathal McConnel's", but the tune , I feel is much older than him!
Interestingly, before posting it, I checked to see if it was already in the tune-list, and looked at "The Pigeon On The Gate" in Em. There are very strong similarities in the tune structure, so that this appears to be a major key version of the better- known reel.
As with my previous posting, the "Beehive", this is a basic version of the tune, and there are many variations possible.

# Posted on April 16th 2003 by Kenny

Natural Fs?

If this is the tune I'm thinking it is the Fs in the third bar are natural, or did you mean them to be F#s?

# Posted on April 16th 2003 by pchaffee

Sharps

All Fs are # as I play it.

# Posted on April 16th 2003 by Kenny

paddy keenan plays this tune with niall vallely on concertina on his cd na keen affair
he just calls it the pigeon on the gate and the case liner notes say that this is yet another version of the pigeon popularised by conal o'grada
he plays it with F# and to me the second part resembles quite closely the second part of the dogs amongst the bushes as played by planxty and i think from memory willy clancy on one of his records

# Posted on June 30th 2003 by timo

sorry i meant to say paddy keenan plays the f's natural in the third bar thats what the whole post was about but i forgot
nice tune though no one really plays it do they??

# Posted on June 30th 2003 by timo

The Old Pigeon on the Gate

This is very similar to Kitty Gone A Milking: http://thesession.org/tunes/display.php/1647

# Posted on February 1st 2005 by slainte

The version I learnt in my area is very different to Kenny's and goes like this:

X: 1
T: Old Pigeon On The Gate, The
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Gmaj
Bc|dG~G2 dG~G2|(3Bcd eB dBAB|cF~F2 cF~F2|(3Bcd eB dBAB|
dG~G2 dG~G2|(3Bcd eB dBAG|FGAd ~f3e|dcAF G2:|
|:Bc|dggf ~g3f|dg~g2 bgaf| dffe ~f3e|defg agfe|
dggf ~g3f|dg~g2 bgaf|d^cde ~f3e|dcAF G2:|

# Posted on November 14th 2007 by Dow