What Is It That Makes Micho Russell So Special?

[Mr.Gumby]

It's definitely the same tune. The name is a bit of a location thing, Ballynahown is a townland in the Ballinalacken area, right next door to eachother(anyone read Anne Enright's 'The Green Road'?).

My guess is that it's perhaps not a literal transcription of the playing and some Micho-isms have been 'normalised' in the Treoir version to make the tune more suitable for general consumption. Or perhaps the notation came from a different recording that we haven't heard. In the recording the octaving of the e in the first part make the tune as he played it very distinct, to the point of being idiosyncratic, although when you take that away the tune becomes a run of the mill one with its stand out quality lost.