Rights of Man

A staple hornpipe of the session repertoire, "Rights of Man" almost certainly takes its name from Thomas Paine's 1791 book, whose revolutionary sympathies circulated widely in Ireland even after the work was banned and publicly burned. The tune is sometimes credited to James Hill, the Tyneside fiddler-composer (1811–1853) behind hornpipes like "The High Level Bridge" and "The Beeswing," though that attribution is disputed and its origin stays unsettled across England, Scotland and Ireland. Usually played as a hornpipe, it also turns up in reel time, notably from the Cape Breton fiddler Winston "Scotty" Fitzgerald.