- Style
- Bluegrass
- Tradition
- Irish origin, American fiddle standard
- Form
- Reel
- Key
- A Mixolydian
- Level
- 3
- Played on
- Fiddle
In the public domain. Source
Music
Learn the melody first. Each step adds to the one before it.
Fills the long notes with open strings and a triplet, adds a few double stops and ends each part on the G natural turn.
Click any note to start from there
Chord chart
History
The Irish title, "An Giolla Rua," means the red-haired lad, and he is usually taken to be a real outlaw. The tune also carries the song "The Little Beggarman" in Ireland, Scotland and England, and Edward Bunting printed a related melody in 1840. Fiddlers in Scotland and Ireland both play it, which is rare, and American players took it up with few changes.
A story from Ireland tells of piper Donnchadh Ó Sé, who learned a fairy tune on a cliff and fell ill whenever he played it. When a robber held a pistol on him and demanded that tune, he played "An Giolla Rua" instead, and the robber never noticed.