The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #32092   Message #4039356
Posted By: Lighter
13-Mar-20 - 01:37 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Muirsheen Durkin / Molly Durkin
Subject: RE: Origins: Muirsheen Durkin / Molly Durkin
O Lochlainn sez (More Irish Street Ballads, 1965):

"This air is sung in Conamara to 'Peigin Leiter Mor' I learnt the last verse in childhood and 'invented' the other two, finding nothing else but a fragment 'And now to end my story, I 'll marry Queen Victorey.' See B. Breathnach ' Ceol Rince,' where it is named 'Cailini Deasa Mhuigheo.'"

The titles in English are "Peggy Lettermore" and "The Pretty Girls of Mayo." The latter reel may be heard here (first tune in a medley):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WH_V-U5XaU

More about it:

https://tunearch.org/wiki/Annotation:Pretty_Girls_of_Mayo

The Dubliners' version of "Peggy Lettermore" is quite different:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ9p6NreqAU

See also the quote from The Ballad Index, above.

O Lochlainn was born in 1892. His "childhood" thus lasted till about 1904.