Out on the Ocean

George Petrie collected this jig in the mid 1800s as "The Bucks of Ahasnagh," and Cork piper and clergyman James Goodman wrote it down as "The Tithes Are All Down." Jack Campin counts it among the many offshoots of the Lowland Scots spinning song "Rock and a Wee Pickle Tow."

Francis O'Neill got it from Patrick "Big Pat" O'Mahony, a West Clare flute player and Chicago patrolman. O'Neill wrote that O'Mahony never tapped his foot. He tilted his chair back against the wall and swung both feet in time like a double pendulum. It is almost always played in G, though the Boys of the Lough recorded it in A in 1988.