Colonel Fraser’s

The military title is a red herring: "Colonel Fraser" is an Irish reel, and one of the 'big', many-parted piping tunes that uilleann pipers favour for piling on variations. Who the Colonel was is hazy — flute player Séamus Tansey passed down a story that he was an English landlord in Leinster, kind to his tenantry and to travelling pipers, with the tune made in his honour after he bought one piper a new set of pipes. It carries a deep manuscript pedigree, from a setting in Patrick O'Farrell's c.1860s Longford manuscript to a "Colonel Frazer" in fiddler-piper Stephen Grier's c.1883 Leitrim book. Francis O'Neill had his version from Chicago fiddler John McFadden, who learned it from a piper named Quinn; O'Neill reckoned the tune's later parts were Quinn's own variations.