The Boys of the Lough

Sligo fiddler Michael Coleman recorded this reel in New York in 1922 and made it popular, though it had long been played around his home district of Killavil. Frank Roche printed it in 1912 as "The Rose of Castletown," and Francis O'Neill as "The Johnstown Reel."

Relatives turn up in Canada: Don Messer popularized "Jerome's Farewell to Gibraltar," and Quebec fiddler Isidore Soucy recorded a version in 1929 as "Gigue à Tit noir." Sessions usually play it in two parts, though Coleman's followers have spun it out to many more.