Irish Traditional Music Tune Index
Tune ID# 1134 (Bag of Potatoes)

RhythmBarsMode
Single reel16G Major
Transcription of first 2 bars of Bag of Potatoes
 about these two bars

These two bars are the start of my transcription of how this tune was played – the first time through – on the recording Ch 2 (details in the Discography below).

Where do you get the tune titles?
Titles given to this tune in the sources listed below (plus notes of mine about this tune):
Bag of Potatoes, The / The Little Bag of Spuds / An Mála Beag Fataí / What the Devil Ails You (also as fling, also in D) (compare 1st part with 1st part of Anything for John-Joe #976)
What do the "track#tune" codes mean?

cd Discography

Here are all recordings of this tune considering only the indexed recordings. I have discovered by careful listening that these sources are in fact musically the same tune, regardless of the tune titles they use, key changes, retuning, etc. They are listed in order of when they were recorded.

Year
Recorded
Track
#Tune
[Album code] Artist. Title. Primary musicians (instruments). Album details
and contents
19699#3[Ch 2] The Chieftains. 2. Michael Tubridy (flute, concertina, whistle), Seán Potts (whistle), Paddy Moloney (pipes, whistle), Martin Fay (fiddle), Peadar Mercier (bodhrán, bones), Seán Keane (fiddle).View album details
~199818#1[BG 5] Bobby Gardiner. The Clare Shout. Bobby Gardiner (accordion, lilting).View album details

Bibliography

Here are all transcriptions of this tune under any title whatsoever – considering only the indexed books – listed in chronological order. I have discovered by careful comparison that these are very similar to this tune as played on the recordings listed above.

As tune #94 in [CRE 1] Breandán Breathnach. Ceol Rince na hÉireann 1.
On page 85 of [F] S. C. Hamilton. The Irish Flute Player's Handbook.

If you are considering using the above transcriptions to help you learn this tune, I invite you to check these practical Tips for Learning Irish Traditional Music. See also: So why do you bother indexing books and abc?

Year of the oldest source for this tune, considering the recordings and transcriptions listed above (note that I concentrate on sources after 1900): 1963