- Style
- Celtic
- Tradition
- Irish
- Form
- Reel
- Key
- E Dorian
- Level
- 3
- Played on
- Fiddle
In the public domain. Source
Music
Learn the melody first. Each step adds to the one before it.
The four bar A part repeats, then the B part runs eight bars.
Click any note to start from there
Chord chart
History
This E minor reel, with a B part that moves to D, is played in sessions everywhere and turns up in rock and pop arrangements too. Fiddler George Halpin made one of the first records of it in the 1920s.
In 1938 Alan Lomax recorded Patrick Bonner playing it on Beaver Island, Michigan, under the name "Rousy Maggie." That same year Frank O'Higgins recorded a version with a third part. Liz Carroll has said Joe Cooley wrote that part, but Cooley was born in 1924, which makes the claim hard to square with the record. "Sleepy Maggie" is a different tune.