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Tom Billy’s

Also known as
Bill Harte'sDonegal Jig No. 2First Cousin Of The Gallant Tipperary BoysPadraic O'Keeffe'sPadraig O'KeefesPádraig O'Keeffe'sPatrick O'Keefe'sPort Uí Chaoimh

Key

A Mixolydian

Type

Jig

Level

BIA

Instrument

Tin Whistle

About this tune

The jig takes its name from Tom Billy Murphy (1875–1943), a fiddler and teacher from Glencollins Upper, Ballydesmond, on the Cork–Kerry border, who worked the Sliabh Luachra country in the same generation as Pádraig O'Keeffe, whose name the tune also carries — one of several it answers to. Denis Murphy and Julia Clifford brought it into wider circulation when they recorded it on The Star Above the Garter (Claddagh, 1969); Murphy, an O'Keeffe pupil, said he had always had the tune "after Tom Billy."

Preview — full lesson available to subscribers

Lesson segments

  • 2:11
  • 12:30
  • 1:31
  • 10:55
  • 1:12
  • 8:03
  • 0:31

Heard on these recordings

Adam Agee & Jon SousaCeol na gCarad
Aoife GranvilleSáimhín Só
Boys Of The LoughIn The Tradition
Boys Of The LoughLive At Carnegie Hall
DaimhThe Hebridean Sessions
Tune data via thesession.org

Part of a set·Tune 1 of 2

Tom Billy’sLangstrom’s Pony

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