Peeler’s Jacket

The "peeler" of the title is an old nickname for a policeman, after Robert Peel, so the name means nothing more exotic than a policeman's jacket. George Petrie printed the reel in his Ancient Music of Ireland (1855) under the older title "The Flannel Jacket," noting that it was by then "generally known by the more modern name of 'The Peeler's Jacket.'" Petrie had the setting from the younger collector P.W. Joyce and checked it against the manuscript books of the Cork piper Patrick Carew. It long ago settled into the common session repertoire on both sides of the Atlantic; Kevin Burke recorded it on Up Close, and Séamus Ennis on The Return From Fingal.