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8 5 18 20121206 18 ~ From the Archive ~ A TUNE FROM TURLOUGH CAROLAN W HILE SETTING MUSIC for the IMCO website, quite often you come across a tune that leaps out and grabs you by the throat. This is such a one – a Carolan piece that has not, so far as I can find, received much attention from recording artists. It is named as “Nancy McDermot” in Gems from the Emerald Isle, and as “Nanny McDer- motroe” in Clinton’s Gems of Ireland (both of these are available on IMCO). In Donal O’Sullivan’s Carolan, it is named “Mrs. Anne MacDermott Roe”, so that title is used here. In its original setting it presents problems for a piper, as it has a range of nearly two octaves. My setting here involves compromising the lowest note – the B below bottom D in this key. As just three changes are needed, the tune is not totally ruined and, I think, stands up the treatment. The points where the intervention is required can be seen in bars 2, 4 and 8, where the ‘correct’ read- ings are shown with small note-heads. I think also that, in this key, bar 6 should be based around the note A. Both the Gems and the O’Sullivan versions deviate from this. The subject of the tune was Anne O’Donnell who married Henry MacDermott Roe in unusual cir- cumstances. He was engaged to be married to a Miss O’Malley, and their wedding day was fixed. Before the wedding, Henry, while on a visit to the O’Malleys accompanied by his mother and brother, asked his mother’s leave to pay a brief visit to the O’Donnells of Newport, where Car- olan was staying at the time. There was also a priest in the house and, before morning, Henry was married to Anne O’Donnell. Henry’s mother held Carolan partly to blame, and it was some time before she and he were reconciled. Terry Moylan Mrs. Anne MacDermott Roe Turlough Carolan

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