Irish Traditional Music Tune Index
Tune ID# 187 (Boil the Breakfast Early)

RhythmBars8-bar phrase structureMode
Reel16ABG Major
Transcription of first 2 bars of Boil the Breakfast Early
 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 LR 1 (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):
Boil the Breakfast Early / Boil the Beefsteak Early / Court Her along the Road / Wild Irishman / Peadar's Reel (also doubled, also with 3 parts)
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
19371#1[LR 1] Leo Rowsome. Classics of Irish Piping. Leo Rowsome (pipes).View album details
~194910#2[CmA 1] various. The Coleman Archive Vol. 1: The Living Tradition. View album details
~197410#3[KCB 3] [The Kilfenora Ceili Band]. [The Kilfenora Céilí Band]. View album details
~19791#1[Ch B] The Chieftains. 9. Boil the Breakfast Early. Paddy Moloney (pipes, whistle), Seán Keane (fiddle), Martin Fay (fiddle, bones), Derek Bell (harp, tiompán), Kevin Conneff (bodhrán, vocals), Matt Molloy (flute, whistle).View album details
199017#1[MR 5] Micho Russell. Ireland's Whistling Ambassador. Micho Russell (whistle, vocals).View album details
~199511#2[Whr] Paddy Glackin and Robbie Hannan. The Whirlwind. Paddy Glackin (fiddle), Robbie Hannan (pipes).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 #789 in [1001] Francis O'Neill and James O'Neill. The Dance Music of Ireland. 1001 Gems. [available]
As tune #22 in [P] Brian and Eithne Vallely. Play 50 Reels.
As reel #118 in [MM] Martin Mulvihill. First Collection of Traditional Irish Music.
In [M] Phil Rubenzer. Midwestern Irish Session Tunes. 3rd Edition.
On page 5 of [M2] Phil Rubenzer. Midwestern Irish Session Tunes. Millennium Edition.
As reel #17 in [Cobb] Dan Cobb. Cobb's Music of Ireland. [available]
As tune #229 in [FT] Randy Miller. The Fiddler's Throne. [available]
As tune #55 in [Raff] Lesl Harker. 300 Tunes from Mike Rafferty. [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): 1907
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!
Start at