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8 1 17 20120206 17 ~ Seanchas ~ NOTES ON THE WEXFORD GENTLEMAN PIPER LARRY GROGAN (1702–1728/9) PART 2 Seán Donnelly ‘THE COUNTY OF LIMERICK BUCK-HUNT’ W HEN PIERCE CREAGH wrote ‘The County of Limerick Buck-Hunt’ to the tune ‘Larry Grogan’, he ac- knowledged his borrowing in the opening line, ‘By your leave, Larry Grogan’, which became an alternative title for the tune. W.H. Grattan Flood, however, frequently stated that Creagh used the Irish air, ‘Nach mBaineann sin Dó’ for the song. In doing so, however, he followed A.P. Graves, who set the text to this tune in 1894, unaware of the significance of the open- ing line. 1 It is one of those littles oddities that Flood, a highly enthusiastic Wexfordman – a ‘Yellowbelly’ – though born in co. Waterford, never linked the jig to the piper, even though the tune was so common under its original title in collections published even in twentieth cen- tury. In fact, the late Jack Devereux of Kilmore Quay, co. Wexford, said that in his early years local musicians still called the tune ‘Grogan’s Jig’ (p. 52). The buck-hunt celebrated in the song was hosted at Raleighstown (now Rawleystown), Cahercorney, co. Limerick, by Edward Croker (1704–86), eldest son of John Croker of Bal- lynagarde, Ballyneety. 2 In 1735 he had been elected high sheriff of Limerick, and the song is mentioned in a record of this appointment published in 1827: … Grandson to Edward Croker, Sheriff, in 1709; on him was made the popular song of "By your leave Larry Grogan," by the late Pierce Creagh of Dangan, Esq. He built a fine house at Rawleighstown in 1753, at the ex- pense of more than £6000, which is now totally in ruins. 3 Creagh’s great-grandfather, mayor of Limer- ick at the time of Ireton's siege of the city in 1651, forfeited lands at Adare and was granted an estate in co. Clare. Creagh himself married three times, and conformed to the Es- tablished Church in 1738, a loss the Catholic elite in Clare felt keenly. 4 Succeeding his fa- ther at Dangan in 1751, he was elected high sheriff of Clare the same year. 5 Possibly he was the source of ‘Mr Creagh’s Irish Tune’, a version of the harp piece attributed to Ru- aidhrí Dall Ó Catháin to which Carolan sub- sequently wrote Seabhac na hÉirne, ‘The Hawk of Ballyshannon’, published in London in 1745 by Burk Thumoth. 6 Thumoth shared Creagh’s interest in horse-racing, as wit- nessed by a report in Faulkner’s Dublin Jour- nal, 25 April 1739: ‘Yesterday was run for on the Commons of Swords, a pair of Silver Spoons, which was won by a mare belonging to Mr. Thumoth.’ (‘Spoons’ would have been a misprint for ‘spurs’.) The tune’s source could also have been Creagh’s father, of course, also named Pierce, who subscribed to A brief discourse in vindication of the antiq- uity of Ireland … (Dublin, 1717), by the Clare

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2012-02-01T00:00:00

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