Maid of the House

What little is known of this reel points to Co. Antrim. The story, passed hand to hand around Ballycastle, is that a fiddle maker named Dan O'Loan left the tune scribbled on a scrap of paper in an old fiddle case, signed by the local fiddler Leo Ginley — though whether Ginley composed it or only copied it down from another player's setting, no one can say. The name adds to the haze: it is shared with sung airs of the same title, which has long tangled the dance tune's recorded history.