Irish Traditional Music Tune Index
Tune ID# 1801 (Speed the Plough)

RhythmBars8-bar phrase structureMode
Reel32AABBG Major
Transcription of first 2 bars of Speed the Plough
 about these two bars

These two bars are the start of the transcription in the book B&S (details in the Bibliography 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):
Speed the Plough / God Speed the Plough / Bí ag Treabhadh leat / Croghan Hill / Off in the Morning / Vincie Crowley's / Ireland in New York (Scottish setting is in A) (composed by John Moorhead / Morehead / Muirhead, possibly)
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
~1978B.5#1[NF] Joe Shannon, Johnny McGreevy. The Noonday Feast. Joe Shannon (pipes), Johnny McGreevy (fiddle).View album details
~19798#3[BHIW] Dolores Keane & John Faulkner. Broken Hearted I'll Wander. Dolores Keane (vocals, concertina, flute ,whistle, hurdy gurdy, bodhrán), John Faulkner (vocals, guitar, hurdy gurdy, bouzouki).View album details
200012#1[ACB 1] The Abbey Céilí Band. Bruach an tSuláin. Ger Murphy (accordion), Andrew O'Connell (fiddle), Liam Forde (banjo), Micheál Creedon (bass, keyboards).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 #19 in [Sc] Scottish Fiddle Tunes. [available]
As tune #160 in [CRE 2] Breandán Breathnach. Ceol Rince na hÉireann 2.
As tune #1 in volume 4 of [B&S] D[avid] Bulmer and N[eil] Sharpley. Music from Ireland. 4 vols.
On page 264 of [FF] David Brody. The Fiddler's Fakebook. [available]
As tune #18 in [DM 2] Dave Mallinson. 100 Enduring Irish Session Tunes. [available]
As reel #99 in [HN] Henrik Norbeck. Henrik Norbeck's Abc Tunes. [available]
In [FMH] Tom Hastings. The Feis Musicians Handbook [sic].
As reel #49 in [Cobb] Dan Cobb. Cobb's Music of Ireland. [available]

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): 1903
Please cite your source when you use information from this document.
© 2000–2008 Alan Ng, agng@facstaff.wisc.edu. Questions? Comments? Please use the easy Feedback Form. Thank you!
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