The Wind That Shakes the Barley

The earliest printings are Irish, in William Power's country dance collection published in Dublin around 1812 and Maurice Hime's of about 1814. Some writers have called it Scottish, and one heard it as a version of Nathaniel Gow's "Fairy Dance," but Samuel Bayard found it mostly in Irish and Irish American playing.

It traveled widely. It was played for country dances in Orange County, New York, in the 1930s, Beaver Island fiddler Patrick Bonner recorded it in Michigan, and a Nova Scotia farmer and fiddler, James Barry, wrote it into his manuscript in the 19th century. The reel has nothing to do with the Robert Dwyer Joyce song of the same name.