Teetotaler’s

This G-major reel is best known in Ireland as the "Teetotaler's," while in North America players most often call the very same tune the "Temperance Reel." Both titles, like the alternate name "The Bowl of Coffee," trace to the 19th-century temperance movement and its pledges against drink. It is an old reel: R.M. Levey printed it in his First Collection of the Dance Music of Ireland (1858), and Francis O'Neill later included it as the "Teetotaler's Fancy" in O'Neill's Dance Music of Ireland: 1001 Gems (1907). Aly Bain is among the many fiddlers who have recorded it.