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8 5 11 20121206 11 down (or could go down) to low C that came to- gether through recollection and a quick flipping through of a few books. One might say that we can often work around low C, which is of course true. But by the same token, there may be many unex- pected places we could work low C into existing tunes if that became an option. My original short list included a few very well known airs that go down to C, but which I’d rarely if ever heard on pipes. Some of these may be playable in other keys but not, of course, with the drones reinforcing the tonic. Though overdone perhaps in the “parlour-vibrato” tradition, “My Lagan Love” is set to an undeniably moving air. In Songs of Uladh, Herbert Hughes wrote that he collected the melody “while on holi- day in North Dun-na-nGall” in August of 1903 from “Proinseas mac Suibhne who played it for me on the fidil. He had it from his father Seaghan mac Suibhne, who learned it from a sapper working on the Ordnance Survey in Tearmann about fifty years ago. It was sung to a ballad called “The Belfast Maid”, now forgotten in Cill-mac-nEnain.” 2 This air is an example of one where the low leading note is essential to the melody and cannot be substituted. Other airs where low C is indispensable are “An Sagairtín” (same air as “She moved through the Fair”), “The Month of January” (same air as “Paddy’s Green Shamrock Shore”), “Dobbin's Flowery Vale” and “Siún Ní Dhuibhir”. There are also a great many airs in a minor key that dip down and linger on the note below the tonic. Again, these could be played in a key other than D minor, but in that case would not have the drones reinforcing the tonic as they would if played in D minor with low “C”s. Ex- amples are “The Banks of the Moorlough Shore” (same air as “The Foggy Dew”), “Anach Cuan”, “An raibh tú ar an gCarraig”, “The Banks of Sullane”, “I am a Youth that's Inclined to Ramble”, “Úna Bhán”, “The May Morning Dew” and “An Buachaillín Bán”. Other airs in a minor key sometimes have an incidental note of B below C which often can be omitted or substituted, such as “A Chomaraigh Aoibhinn Ó” (same air as “The Star of the County Down”) and “Coinleach Glas an Fhómhair”. Aside from airs usually performed sean-nós, songs such as “Siúil A Rúin”, “The Maid of Coolmore”, “Lord Baker”, “An Gabhar Bán”, “Aililiú Na Gamhna”, “An t-Oileán Úr” and one version of “Caidé Sin Do’n Té Sin” could also be played in D with low “C”s. Turning to dance tunes, there is a good crop of tunes that go down to C. “The King of the Pipers” is a regal four-part jig with low “C”s throughout. Caoimhín Mac Aoidh suggests that the “King” re- ferred to was Turlough McSweeney (yet another McSweeney from Donegal!). 3 But how did he deal with those low “C”s? While visiting Chicago in 1893, McSweeney confided to Sgt. Early and a Mr. Gillan that, although his father and grandfa- ther were fine pipers, as a young man he himself didn’t have any music in him. So one night, pipes in tow, he resolved to go to a local ancient hilltop rath and seek help from the sídhe. Nervously, he called out, requesting the king of the fairies to play him a “chune” after which Turlough would do the same. No sooner had the words left his mouth than “Yerra man, like a shot out of a gun”, the grandest music of a host of pipes filled the air ac- companied by scores of luricans in red caps “neatly footing it, as if for a wager”. At this point, young Turlough lost his resolve and hoofed it away from the fort at top speed, dropping pieces of his pipes along the way. When he finally made it home, he had nothing left but the bag and bel- lows strapped to his waist. He ventured out again the next morning, this time without any sleep in him, and managed to locate the pieces of his in- strument, finding “the last missing part, which had dropped off at the very entrance to the rath”. To his own great astonishment, upon reassembling this pipes, he found he could play “The Wild Irish- man” like he’d never done before. 4 I can’t help but wonder though if the sídhe had cast a spell over McSweeney when they made him “King of the Pipers” so that he forgot about dropping the foot- joint inside the fairy mound that had allowed him to play low C (“…and that, my friends, is the true

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