Irish Traditional Music Tune Index
Tune ID#840 (Hold the Reins)
about these two barsThese two bars were transcribed by me from how this tune was played – the first time through – on the recording BHCMoher (details in the Discography below).
| Rhythm ? | Bars | 8-bar phrase structure | Mode ? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reel | 16 | AB | G Major |
Hold the Reins / Hould the Reins / The Boys of Dublin / The Lads of Dublin / The Dublin Lads / Callan Lasses / Thornton's (2nd in set The Wee Bag of Spuds on DOEI; 3rd in set North Sea Crossing on Sld 1) (also in C) (compare with 1st and 3rd parts of Dublin Lads #5145 and compare 1st part with 1st part of Lucky in Love #2396)
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.
Click 
to hear the first 12 seconds.
to hear the first 12 seconds.| Year Recorded |
Track #Tune? |
[Album code] Artist. Title. Performers (instruments). |
|---|---|---|
| ~1972 | 11#1 | [BHCMoher] Sean Ryan, Kathleen Ryan, Pat Lyons. Back Home to the Cliffs of Mohir [sic]. Sean Ryan (fiddle), Pat Lyons (accordion), Kathleen Ryan (piano). |
| 1992 | 6#3 | [DOEI] Dear Old Erin's Isle. Irish Traditional Music from America. Seamus Egan (flute). |
| ~1995 | 3#2 | [JW 1] John Williams. John Williams. John Williams (accordion, concertina). For this tune: (concertina). |
| 1999 | 3#3 | [Sld 1] Slide. The Flying Pig. Aogán Lynch (concertina, whistle), Daire Bracken (fiddle, guitar, vocals), Mick Broderick (bouzouki), Éamonn de Barra (flute, piano, keyboards, whistle, vocals). |
| 2001 | 8#2 | [KlmFcy] Catherine McEvoy and John McEvoy. The Kilmore Fancy. Catherine McEvoy (flute), John McEvoy (fiddle). |
| ~2004 | 10#3 | [TTItself] Maeve Donnelly and Peadar O'Loughlin. The Thing Itself. Maeve Donnelly (fiddle), Peadar O'Loughlin (flute). |
Bibliography
Here are all transcriptions of this tune 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 reel #85 in [MM] Martin Mulvihill. First Collection of Traditional Irish Music. |
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): 1959