Key signature: Amajor
Submitted on July 11th 2006 by tbag.
This tune has been added to 15 tunebooks.
Also known as Coming Home From The Bog, The Gardener's Daughter, My Love Is Fairy Handsome.
Recordings of a tune by this name:
X: 1
T: My Love Is Fair And Handsome
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Amaj
E3F A2Bc | dBcA BFAF | E3F ABcA | [1 B3c A2AF :| [2 B3c ABcd ||
e2ce aecA | BdcA BFF2 | e2ce aecA | B3c ABcd |
e2ef e2cA | B/c/d cA BFF2 | Affe f/g/a ec | B3c A2AF ||
Another tune from Brian McNamara's brilliant 'A Piper's Dream' album. I did as many searches as I could which turned up nothing to suggest the tune was already here under another name, so apologies if it's already in the database.
It shares a few characteristics with other tunes but I think it's different enough that it's not just a different setting of another tune.
# Posted on July 11th 2006 by tbag
There are a lot of tunes like this aren't there? I can think of a couple - Coming Home From The Bog http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/2965, and Kit O'Connor's http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display.php/230.
# Posted on July 11th 2006 by Dow
Yeah, it reminded me a bit of the Kerry Reel that's on Mick O'Brien's 'May Morning Dew' too, and also of 'The Sports at Listowel'. 'Twas hard enough to judge whether it's just an alternative setting of one of the ones you posted there, but it's such a lovely tune I thought I'd shtick it on anyways!
# Posted on July 11th 2006 by tbag
I think of the 2 links I've posted it's most like Coming Home From The Bog. I like this setting though. It's nice as a single reel, and it's nice in Amaj too. With a few tweaks it'd make a nice fling.
# Posted on July 11th 2006 by Dow
Hey Tize, I just found this @ the Fiddler's Companion:
"COMING HOME FROM THE BOG --- The tune has some similarities to "McFadden's Handsome Daughter," Breathnach (1985) says, but the turns are not the same. He records that “My Love is Fair and Handsome” is a Kerry title for the tune and the “The Gardener’s Daughter” is a name for it in Sligo. Source for notated version: fiddler Paddy Ryan (Co. Roscommon and Birmingham) [Breathnach]. Breathnach (CRÉ II), 1976; No. 141, pg. 76."
# Posted on July 11th 2006 by Dow
Well there ya go then
I did think it must be a Kerry tune, or at least setting, with the similarities to the afore mentioned kerry reel & tune about whatever sports they do in Listowel other than drinking! The whole Amaj, short reel, working better steadier and swingy and is it a reel/is it a fling thing always seems to point to a Kerry tune for me.
I too think it lends itself towards being fitted to a fling; I think the only time I played this tune in a gig I did it after 'Kitty Got A Clinking Coming From the Fair' - the Gmaj fling on the Pipering of Willie Clancy. Don't know if that one's in the database here... if someone who's better at the ol' tune searches than me can prove it's not then I'll submit that one 'cos it's a lovely tune!
# Posted on July 11th 2006 by tbag
Yes, it does explain the Kerry thing. I don't have that Mick O'Brien album. I'd be interested to see a transcription of that Kerry Reel sometime.
# Posted on July 11th 2006 by Dow
That Mick O'Brien Kerry reel is actually a fling (I always get them mixed up - the first two tunes in the set are the Kerry reel and Kerry fling and I can never remember which way round they were) and is posted (more or less the setting) here:
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/1615
The Sports at Listowel is a very similar tune. I don't know if it's on here but it's from A Clare Conscience by Aidan McMahon and Anthony Quigney.
# Posted on July 11th 2006 by tbag
Ah yes, The Road To Glountane. That's one of my fave tunes!
# Posted on July 11th 2006 by Dow
Like "My love is fair and handsome", I also know another tune called "Maude Millar" (O'Neil's #1220).
# Posted on July 13th 2006 by Miguel L.
My Love is Fair.. and McFadden's Handsome...
Brian McNamara got "My Love is Fair and Handsome" from an old Leitrim manuscript, but Sligoman Paddy Killoran applied the same name when he recorded it in the 78 rpm era. O'Neill's tune by this name is a different reel (similar to the one now called "Maude Miller"), which he had picked up as a young man in America. When Mayo fiddler John McFadden gave O'Neill a three-part version, he published that setting as "McFadden's Handsome Daughter."
# Posted on October 19th 2006 by blarneystar