Dark Woman of the Glen

This slow air carries one of the great Irish love songs, known in Connemara as "Bean Dubh an Ghleanna" — the dark woman of the glen. Francis O'Neill printed the melody in his Music of Ireland (1903), having taken it from the Boston fiddler Daniel Sullivan, a Millstreet, County Cork man, by way of the piper Patsy Touhey. The Traditional Tune Archive treats it as a Connemara relative of "Séamus Óg Pluincéad." It has stayed a favourite of the pipers especially: Séamus Ennis and Liam O'Flynn both recorded it, O'Flynn on The Piper's Call.