The Green Island/The Lone Bush


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This track is from our 2006 CD, Concert Tour of North America 2006.

The first hornpipe, The Green island, is included in O’Neill’s 1850 (No.1774) the source of the tune being Captain O’Neill himself. Given the many references to Ireland in some of O’Neill’s tune titles it could be easily assumed that ‘The Green Island’was a reference to the island of Ireland but it is highly likely that it is a far more specific reference to a landscape feature on view from O’Neill’s home in Tralibane in West Cork.

Nickie McAuliffe (c.f.Track 13) while on a visit to view O’Neill’s homestead met a local man who pointed out a little green patch of ground at the crossroads at Tralibane Bridge. He told Nickie that in times gone by local people used to dance on this patch of ground,a patch referred in local folklore to as The Green Island. Nickie immediately linked this local custom to the name of the said hornpipe in O’Neill’s Collection. Many of O’Neill’s tunes have names with links to the Captain’s West Cork connections – ‘Banks of the Ilen’, ‘The Bantry Hornpipe’, ‘The Humours of Drinagh’ and it is thought that O’Neill may have named some tunes, which came to him without titles, after places and memories from his childhood.

‘The Lone Bush’ is another of a composition of Ed Reavy. As stated previously (c.f.Track 6) Reavy was anxious to ensure that the title of his tunes said something about his own values: his personal feelings about Ireland and about the people he loved.In Where The Shannon Rises,Ed Reavy himself makes the following comment on this lovely hornpipe.

‘The Lone Bush’: There was a bush that bloomed alone outside Ed’s farmhouse.Many times he has wondered about that bush and why it survived when all around it perished. It has meant many things to him and has always been a life-sustaining thought.’

Date
5 December 2006
Tune
The Green Island/The Lone Bush
Created By
Trad./Ed Reavy
Source
Concert Tour of North America 2006
Performers/Subjects Instruments
Comhaltas Concert Tour 2006 Musicians

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