Na Píobairí Uilleann

Chairman, NPU

An Píobaire

2

8 2 24 20120411 24 appearance of ‘Esquire’ on his headstone could indicate a petulant insistence on his status of gentleman, despite the circumstances of his birth. Could he have been a son of Larry’s, one reared in the family after his father died in the West Indies? If he was born in the early 1720s, he would have been approximately contempo- rary with Alice Langley, and perhaps had in- herited his father’s musical talent. Fathers who died young, in their twenties and thirties, could be confused in documents and tradition with sons of the same name. What could be a hint that Larry Grogan had some link to ‘Ally Croker’ already in the eigh- teenth century occurs in a letter written c.1790 by William Jones (c.1729–95), an antiquarian and musician from Llangadfan, Mont- gomeryshire, Wales, close to the border with England. In the letter Jones wrote out the fig- ures and tunes of a number of dances once pop- ular in his local area, and they included a version of ‘Larry Grogan’ called ‘Aly Gro- gan’. 24 At its simplest, the title appears to be a confusion of ‘Ally Croker’ and ‘Larry Gro- gan’, one facilitated by their general agreement in sound and their having the same number of syllables. The variation is all the more intrigu- ing because despite the numerous other titles ‘Larry Grogan’ acquired, the original remains surprisingly stable. (Samuel Newman’s ‘Lara- grogan’ of 1789 is not that much of a corrup- tion: it would have reflected how the title would have been pronounced in parts of Ire- land.) Jones’s title, then, may be just coinci- dence, but it could be a tiny hint that the names/titles ‘Larry Grogan’ and ‘Ally Croker’ were associated already in the 18th century. CORRECTIONS. Part 1. An Píob. vii, 5 (Nollaig/December 2011), 20–25. ‘A Morbid and Miserly Father’, 20–1. The satirical elegy on John Grogan was also published in the London Journal, 4 February 1722, where he is wrongly called ‘Patrick Gro- gan’. ‘Dancing “Larry Grogan”, Philadelphia to Cincinnatti … 1789’, 22–3. I was unable to explain how the phrase ‘to dance Larry Grogan’, as used by Captain Samuel Newman of the US Army in 1789, had come to mean a flogging. A possible explana- tion, too obvious for me to notice, of course, was that the metaphor transferred from Jack Lattin, Grogan’s musical colleague in the Con- niving House near Ringsend in the 1720s. ‘I’ll make you dance Jack Lattin’ was a threat of a beating still to be heard in co. Kildare in the late 19 th century, and was given an interna- tional currency by James Joyce in Ulysses (1922). Part 2. An Píob. Viii, 1 (Feabhra/February 2012), 17–21. ‘The County of Limerick Buck-Hunt’. Last minute rearrangement of this section to suit publication resulted in some slight confu- sion. The first full sentence in column two, page 20, should ‘Much closer to ‘Knockdiscan’ is ‘Knock-kiston’ in a manuscript copy of the song made by Ralph Ouseley of Limerick (c.1704–1803) …’. The reference (18) on page 21 should then be ‘Maurice Lenihan, Limer- ick; its history and antiquities (Dublin, 1867), p. 343.’ In column one on page 21, the third and fourth lines should read in part ‘… “Miss Pearce” in Ouseley’s copy of the song.’ The reference (23) on the same page should now read ‘Lenihan, Limerick, p. 343.’ ADDITION ‘Langstern Pony’: The jig whose title is now most commonly spelt ‘Langstern Pony’ is mentioned in the song ‘Larry Grogan’: ‘What heart can be stony,/To hear Lanstron Pony …’. This tune was first published by John and

8

24

[Periodical]

2012-04-21T00:00:00

anonymous,guest,friend,member