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Sporting Pitchfork

Key

D Mixolydian

Type

Jig

Level

BIA

Instrument

Tin Whistle

About this tune

The "pitchfork" of the title is a person rather than the tool: the Traditional Tune Archive glosses it as an itinerant farm laborer, known by the implement of his trade much as a payroll gunman in the American West was a "hired gun." The double jig is best known in a set with "The Rambling Pitchfork," which Paddy Glackin and Paddy Keenan recorded together on their 1978 album Doublin'; that medley has gone by "The Pitchforks" ever since.

Preview — full lesson available to subscribers

Lesson segments

  • 1:25
  • 1:25
  • 7:47
  • 10:46
  • 1:26

Heard on these recordings

Aidan CrosseyWhere Old Ghosts Meet
Alan And John KellyFourmilehouse
Anna FalkenauFéileacán na Saoirse
Chris J. Smith with Roger Landes and Randal BaysCoyotebanjo
Daniele BicegoThe Year of the Snake
Tune data via thesession.org

Part of a set·Tune 1 of 3

Sporting PitchforkRambling PitchforkOld Favorite

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