- Style
- Celtic
- Tradition
- Irish
- Form
- Slip jig
- Key
- A Dorian
- Level
- 3
- Played on
- Fiddle and Mandolin
In the public domain. Source
Music
100bpm
Click any note to start from there
Chord chart
History
The tune was first printed in Dublin in 1841, in a magazine that called it a "modern Irish dance" and said the name came from a road near Clonmel. Nurses in Munster sang it to the children they minded, and some offered it as a reason to hire them: they could "sing and dance the baby to the Rocky Road."
The song most people know came later. D. K. Gavan, known as the Galway Poet, wrote words about a young man leaving Tuam for Liverpool, and the music hall singer Harry Clifton made them popular. O'Neill printed the slip jig with a third part, which may have been added by Chicago fiddler James McFadden.
In the merry month of May from my home I started, Left the girls of Tuam nearly broken-hearted.