Welcome to my blog, “Music in the Meadow”.

Here I share traditional pieces and original compositions,
and the stories of the people, places and times which inspired them.

The Sunny Hills of Beara
The Woods of Caol Rua
The Fox in the Thatch

These three beautiful jigs were composed by John Dwyer, a fiddle player from the Beara peninsula, and a man coming from a very musical family indeed. If you’d like to learn more about John and his music, there’s a great website.

I myself learned the first of these three from concertina and flute player, Katie MacDonald, of Halifax. The second and third ones were given to me by my ever patient mentor, Oisín Mac Diarmada.

I hope you enjoy them just as much as I do!

October 2025

Ag Taisteal na Blárnan – slow air/meditation

I’m looking forward to – hopefully – seeing and playing for the fine folks at the Sensea Nordic Spa in a few weeks, and seeing as it’s been some time since I’ve updated my music blog here, I figured I’d share a piece along the lines of what I might play in a meditative setting like Sensea.

The instrumentation featured here is harp and a type of Indian classical instrument called the “Shruti Box” a relative of the harmonium which is now popularly used in creating sound scapes and meditative music. When playing shruti along with harp, the unmetered, slow Irish air used here creates a serene, nearly celestial atmosphere. It’s very relaxing to play this type of music and I always feel deeply peaceful when performing it.

September 2025

Farewell to Donnelly (original composition)

I composed this slip jig for concertina player, Christine Donnelly. Since covid happened, Christine has played the parts of chief, cook and bottlewasher hosting a session each Wednesday evening in Halifax, at the Oxford Taproom. This session was particularly welcoming; players of all ability levels and backgrounds turn up regularly, as well as people travelling from out of town, province or country. Christine is planning a move to Montreal this autumn, and as she loves jigs and slip jigs, I wanted to gift her something to express my gratitude for the many nights I’ve enjoyed at the Oxford, thanks to her steady organizational efforts.

August 2025

Pictured above, I’m wearing a lovely blue woollen cape, a hand made gift from a fiddle student who enjoys sewing!

The Dark Haired Bride; Nana’s Fancy; Step it Out, Orla!
(original compositions)

I composed these three polkas over the past year or two, and they just happened to flow nicely together as a set (I think!)

The first was composed for dear friends Natalie and Josh Jackman, in celebration of their marriage. Though they do not play, they are very keen listeners and have always been very supportive of my musical endeavours.

If you’ve followed along with my blog much, you’ll know that my Nana was a big part of my musical upbringing, and she was incredibly encouraging. While she was alive, I never managed to bring myself to compose anything, or perhaps, anything I deemed worth sharing – but she always pushed me to try my hand at it, without any pressure to show her or anyone else what I’d created. So, this second tune is named for her.

The third tune somewhat relates to my Nana as well. One of my earliest memories is of walking, and her saying, “step it out, Jenny, step it out” – and doing a little battering step. I remember thinking that that was just the next thing that one learns after learning to walk (which I’m told I was rather late with doing). As our niece Orla began to walk, which was quite early, I had a dream that I was holding her little hands and dancing with her, and saying “Step it out, Orla!” and she’d stomp stomp stomp! This third tune came to me in that dream.

July 2025

Slow Air: A Stor Mo Chroí

This beautiful slow air comes from the melody of a song by the same name, which translates roughly to “The Treasure of My Heart”. It was composed by Brian Higgins (1882 – 1949). It was one of many songs my Nana could rattle off the words and melody to, seemingly effortlessly. The words are as follows:

A stor mo chroi, when you’re far away
From the home that you’ll soon be leaving,
Sure it’s many a time by night and by day
That your heart will be sorely grieving.
For the stranger’s land may be bright and fair,
And rich in all treasures golden.
You’ll pine, I know, for the long, long ago
And the heart that is never olden.

A stor mo chroi, in the stranger’s land
There’s plenty of wealth and wailing.
Though gems adorn the rich and grand
There are faces with hunger paling.
The road may be weary, and hard to tread
And the lights of the city blind you.
Oh turn, a stor, to old Erin’s shore
And the ones you have left behind you.

A stor mo chroi, when the evening’s mist
O’er mountain and meadow is falling,
Oh turn, A Stor, from the throng and list
And maybe you’ll hear me calling.
For the sound of a voice that you seldom hear
For somebody’s speedy return.
A rún, a rún, Won’t you come back soon
To the one who really loves you.

July 2025

Four Old, Single Reels

You’ll have to forgive my absence from this music blog over the past year. In addition to some tech challenges, I’ve made myself busy coaching a céilí band, made up of some of my adult students. Our first go at performing for a dance will happen in September. The polishing of pieces and arrangements is well underway, and I’m very proud of everyones efforts.
Coaching this group has reignited, or perhaps deepened my appreciation of the very old tunes: they are among the most suited for dancing and simplistic beauty. In teaching the tunes, I tried my hardest to seek out the most beautiful and the most dance friendly settings. This has led me to approaching music differently, particularly when at higher speeds – searching always for the simplest and yet most emotionally effective way to play something, rather than filling with intricate detail.
Included in my recording today are not pieces played in the céilí band, but ones that could be well suited, and with the aforementioned approach at the forefront of my mind.
“Come in For Your Tea” or “Lilies in the Field” is the name of the first one, and it and the second one, “The Maid in the Meadow” were introduced to me by my Nana. The third tune, “Wild and Free” is very old, the earliest documentation I could find being a manuscript dated September of 1766. It’s melody bears much resemblance to Molly Bawn/Molly Bán, both a tune and a song that has crossed the Atlantic and is still in fashion locally today. It was one of the songs preserved and collected by Carrie Spinney Grover, a fiddler and musicologist originally from near my home place (she came from Sunken Lake, Kings Co., Nova Scotia). The final reel in this selection is one I chose when reading through O’Neill’s Collection (published 1907), and is titled “How the Money Goes” (“An Nois Ata An Airgiod Caite”).

The Last House in Ballymackea,
Nell, Your Favour I’m Afraid I’ll Never Gain

I learned these two selections from my friend, Mairi Chaimbeul, who plays the harp and lives nearby to me. The first is a composition of Junior Crehans, and he had originally placed it in G major. The latter is a very old tune, the earliest transcription I could find for it was in the Petrie Collection, which was published in 1855 (the tune likely being much older), and he notes that it was collected from one Father Walsh. There are several recordings of it, and I found one of the phrases in Mairis playing to be quite rare, and to sit nicely on the fiddle when playing the tunes at a relaxed speed. The keys used in my recording here as as learned from herself.

If you’re interested in learning tunes, I’ve included the second tune in this set – Nell, Your Favour… – in my weekly tune workshops, which are held on Sunday evenings. To hear the recording of just that tune, played in a bare bones manner meant for learning from, you can find it on the archive where I keep all of the pieces we look at in those classes.
July 2024

Pictured above: a hydrangea from underneath (to celebrate the coming of Spring!)

Reels: Hold the Reigns & Toss the Keys

Though it’s been a few months since I’ve posted a piece to my music blog here, I have been tipping away and playing just about every day. In the time since I last posted, my band, Delhaven, has expanded to include – at times – the inimitable flute player, Katie Blythe. As we gear up for a summer full of music, festivals and adventures, I’ve been enjoying arranging the various instrumentation and parts for some of our selections. We meet each week to rehearse, but in between those happy days, words and recordings fly back and forth plotting out arrangements and ideas. Above is a recording I made, just myself on the various instruments, to help along our step dancer, Elizabeth, who wanted to hear the arrangement of these two reels before our next practise.
May 2024

sculpture and labyrinth in the Tangled Gardens, Kings County

Contentment is Wealth, The Haunted House

Here are two lovely jigs I’ve been teaching recently with some frequency – with a nod to both Thanksgiving and Hallowe’en.

The first of these, Contentment is Wealth, is fairly old, by my understanding. I initially heard the piece played on tenor banjo, by Dr Brian Garvey of Canning (the village I was reared up handy to), and the earliest recording I was able to find when looking into it was of fiddler Hugh Gillespie, in 1939. Of course, Dr Garvey’s eldest daughter, Bridget, was my first inspiration towards wanting to learn the harp, so when I finally had one for myself, that family’s repertoire was something I was eager to explore.

The latter tune, The Haunted House, is a composition of flutist Vincent Broderick’s. He had a knack for composing memorable motifs within his melodies, which all seemed to sit equally well on just about any of the instruments in the tradition. For a time, I lived away from Nova Scotia, and in that spell had a flat in a home where a most grizzly murder had occurred some 15 years prior. Though I never had any supernatural experiences, one musical friend, well aware of this tune, has dubbed that flat “The Haunted House” and I’ve come to remember my time there with each visit to this jig.
October 21st, 2023

Harmony, Kings Co, Nova Scotia

Three Paddy Fahy compositions

11th of October, 2023

Art courtesy of painter Aoife McCauley, from Bear River, Nova Scotia

Reels: Hag in the Glen & the Belles of Tipperary

These lovely reels are two which I’ve taught recently in my free, online tune learning workshop, “Tunes and Tea”. You may access the video lessons, applicable to any traditional instrument, on my facebook page. I’ve attempted to choose both well known and well loved pieces for these workshops, in hopes that they’ll come in handy for being played commonly at sessions. The classes are taught completely aurally: there’s plenty of resources out there to simply read through a chart. But, when it comes to learning a piece by ear in an attempt to better ones phrasing or rhythm, many people have expressed to me that it feels like a huge gap. So, in essence, the classes are aimed at helping people learn how to learn traditional music aurally.

A number of years ago I lived in Toronto for a time, and had a hand in forming the Lansdowne Ceílí Band, an ensemble that played for social dances in and around Toronto. Among the musicians was my neighbour across the street, Daev Clysdale, a gifted multi instrumentalist, who played piano in that lineup, and these two tunes are ones I fondly remember playing with him, both in the band during high octane nights of ceílí dancing and over neighbourly tune visits.

The first tune is frequently called The Kerry Reel or The Green Fields of Rossbeigh, and the latter one does sometimes go by The New Policeman.
4th of October, 2023

White Horses

Above is one of very few pictures I have of our old pony, Misty. Sadly by the time she made it to ours, she was very old and had lived a rather neglected life. Though not well handled in the past, she remained a gentle natured mare and put up with children grooming her, and for company she had the two pigs, many chickens, some ducks, a dog, cat and probably a few other craturs I’ve lost the track of. I often think of Misty when I play this reel, “White Horses”, another favourite of mine and composed by none other than Paddy O’Brien.
6th of July, 2023

Barndances: Joe Bane’s & the Gipsy Princess

My paternal grandparents loved music and dancing very much. My grandfather, who passed at a very young age from tuberculosis, first introduced himself to my grandmother by making conversation (her tea biscuits were reputed to be the tallest and fluffiest in the parish) and asking her to a social dance. She often mused in her later years about how barndances were his very favourite and seemed to suit his gentle, lighthearted nature. She was instrumental in cultivating our love of dance and music; these two old gems were among her favourites.

So, one could say, without barndances, I wouldn’t be here at all! Pictured above is himself in Sunday finest (and what got worn to dances)
9th of June, 2023

The Colliers Reel

It seems so often that I am drawn toward tunes with memorable titles. While musing on the colliers reel this afternoon, I began to draw thoughts to myself about why that is. More often than not, it would seem that I’m searching for some kind of connection. In a time when, in a way, it seems we are rapidly connecting with people from every part of world, it seems odd that there should be so much loneliness. I got to thinking how people can be so moved, angered even, by the plight of a pony who spends their life miserably hauling heavy loads underground yet spend little thought on the lived experience of the coal miner/collier or other manual labourer. I like to think that these tunes encourage me to linger on my thoughts for these people, one of whom was my maternal grandfather.
10th of May, 2023

The Birds (hornpipe)

I began my learning endeavours with the concertina almost exactly one year ago today. I’ve been nervous to share any playing of it online as it is still very new in my hands. The clear, pure tones of a concertina enchant me, though, and I hope it holds something for listeners here as well.
25th of April, 2023

Humours of Ballyloughling & The View Across the Valley

I’ve recently spent some time with my lovely bandmates of Delhaven, and have been working on some sets of tunes for an upcoming festival gig in Halifax. Scott, our flute tooter and piper, suggested we try moving from a jig into a reel and we decided it would be nice to try to hold the tonal centre around D, but move from something akin to D mixolydian to a much more obviously major mode of D. The second tune in the set is a reel holding lots of room for toying with various rhythmic shapes and bowing navigations: The View Across the Valley it’s called, and is composed by John Brady.
9th of April, 2023

My Love is in America

A long cherished tune within my family, and indeed by many friends, I decided to try my hand at it here now just in time for St Valentine’s Day.

February 2023

Mick O’Connor’s Reel

A composition of Charlie Lennon, I recently learned this lighthearted tune from my long suffering mentor, Oisín Mac Diarmada. Playing in the key of C is always a challenge on the fiddle with regards to getting good resonance from the instrument – but usually the tunes fall with some good cross bowing patterns and that’s a good bit of fun to explore.

Bodhrán accompaniment courtesy of Morgan Davison, audio magic from Chris Davison.

22nd of October

Arthur McBride – ballad

Morgan initially learned this piece from Paul Brady and our arrangement of it still today takes hopeful inspiration from that setting. The first written publication known of the song dates to 1840 and of knowledge of which war is being waged is long lost.
It’s intrigued us to learn that the song has come full circle, in a way. Paul Brady learned his singing of it from Carrie Grover nee Spinney, who was recorded singing it in her home in Black River, Kings County, Nova Scotia (not more than 10 miles from Delhaven itself). Carrie stated that she learned the song from her father. Here is a link to the recording Alan Lomax took of herself and further historical information.
10th of October, 2022

The Awakening, reel – fiddle

My wonderful mentor, Oisín Mac Diarmada, introduced me to composer Paddy O’Brien, whose work I’ve been enchanted with since, and it is he who penned this lovely, flowing reel.

28th of June, 2022

The Beautiful Goldfinch, waltz – harp and whistle

This sweet, light hearted waltz was composed by flute player, Marcus Hernon. It first caught my attention when I heard harpist Éadaoin Ní Mhaicín playing the tune in a workshop.

25th of June, 2022

Jig: Jackson’s Nightcap – Harp and Fiddle

Recorded in my fathers cottage home, Jackson’s Nightcap often gets played here as a final tune among friends when visiting; the name of the cottage road being a bit of a joke. Visible from the road is the sea stack pictured above, “Paddy’s Island”, which can be walked to leisurely during low tide.

Another well known name for the tune is Strike the Gay Harp. I’m told that the air of the piece is actually that of a song, “Jackson’s Nightcap” and that the first line of the song sets out with the words, “strike the gay harp”.

Fathers Day
19th of June, 2022

Barndances: The Winter Fling & If We Hadn’t Any Women in the World

Joining me on tonight’s ditty are Scott Henderson (flute) and my musical godfather, Dennis Robinson (piano accordion). The fellas were around for supper and having a bit of fun with the music so we thought to share it here on the blog.

The tenor banjo is a new acquisition for me, having been gifted it just this past Christmas by my dear childhood friend, Josh Noiles from Newport, Hants County. Having long adored banjo music, I’ve been delighted to start learning a few tunes on it.

10th of June, 2022

Reel: The Bag of Spuds – fiddle, pipe drones

A reel I’ve long loved, I initially became enamoured with the playing of Michael Coleman in my late teenage years when I heard his playing of the Bag of Spuds. Though none of us mortals could ever hope to reproduce his exact setting, I very much enjoyed transcribing it at the time, and still toy with some of the ideas he presented just about 100 years ago now.

For a time, I hung my hat in Toronto, and was fortunate enough to be taken under wing by several older musicians there. The late uilleann piper Dr. Brian Kavanaugh became something of a mentor to me, often sharing a pot of tea prior to sessions and showing me recordings, discussing all things music. I recently reflected on one of those fond visits when chatting with another dear friend and musician who raised the idea of practising with drones: being a piper, Brian advised that I try practising my fiddle along with a drone to develop a deeper appreciation of the push and pull each of the other notes feels to the tonal centre.

3rd of June, 2022

Celia Connellan – Harp

I first encountered this lovely slow piece through the playing of Bridget Garvey, a harper from my home village, Canning. I’d have been only a small child when first meeting the wonderfully musical Garvey family, and Bridgets playing was my first draw towards the harp. I’d all but forgotten about this lovely piece when in my twenties, it was mentioned to me again by fiddler Jim McGee of Toronto.

The composition was written in the 17th century by Thomas Connellan from Cloonamahon, Co. Sligo, and the name given to the piece is that of his wife. Much later, Edward Bunting notated the piece, previously transmitted aurally, during the 1792 Belfast Harpers Assembly, and it was published in his 1840 volume, “Ancient Music of Ireland”.

28th of May, 2022