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Looking at the printed sources for that old warhorse 'Kitty's Rambles', it looks like the earliest setting is a minor key variant in O'Farrell's book of piping tunes.

However there is a related tune called "The Heart of my Kitty Soon Turns (or 'warms') to Me". It's in Petrie, set in E minor - a song air rather than a dance tune, with several fermatas. A tune under a similar title was also collected by Goodman (he of the famous exhumed Taylor set). A version is also supposedly in O'Neill's Waifs and Strays (taken from an 1840s manuscript) but I'm damned if I'm able to find it there...maybe I'm being a bit dense.

I've a feeling that here we have a typical 18th century sentimental ballad that was subsequently adapted into the jig 'Kitty's Rambles', but I can find no other references, words, performance details or whatever to 'Heart of my Kitty' (though looking at the tune, and the title, it's clear it once had words that went with it).

Anyone done any research on this tune family? And has anyone ever heard 'Heart of my Kitty' performed in the wild, i.e. a minor key, slow air version of Kitty's Rambles?

myles wrote:Anyone done any research on this tune family? And has anyone ever heard 'Heart of my Kitty' performed in the wild, i.e. a minor key, slow air version of Kitty's Rambles?

Haven't gone back that far, but I play a (jig) version called "The Heart of My Kitty" that comes from The Gunn Book manuscripts (mid-19th century) in County Fermanagh. It has been re-published in the "Hidden Fermanagh" collection, available from the Fermanagh Traditional Music Society.

I would suggest looking over the restored manuscripts from Bunting. Donal O'Sullivan is the scholar who worked to restore Buntings manuscripts. Can't remember his name, but IIRC Bunting was assisted with the Gaelic by a man who later turned 'state's evidence' against Emmett. Bunting and his crowd refused to publish with any of his works so the words were 'lost' to the airs. The manuscripts turned up in 1907.

Bob

Hi
The Watersons did a "With Kitty I will go a Rambling" A north of England ballad
I am not familiar with the tunes so I cant say if there is a similarity Great song tho
must dig it out again.
Bryan
Here it is good old utube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnsP24uRVrE

By coincidence, I was going through my O'Neill's 1001 Gems last night, and re-discovered #5 "Kitty's Rambles"; an interesting setting in D but with loads of incidental C Naturals. Not quite minor-sounding, but getting closer maybe to the original that Myles mentioned?

Bunting's collaborator was Patrick Lynch. His is a fascinating story, told in a three-part mini series by Sean Corchoran on TG4
called "Na Bailitheoirí Ceoil" done in 2010. The bulk of Bunting's collection was made up of the songs Lynch collected, and as
mentioned because of the political turnings of the time Bunting never published Lynch's work. The series is wonderfully done,
and worth a look by anyone interested in the history of Irish music. Here's a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJswc2pATMc

Robert Mouland
www.wireharp.com

Thanks everyone.

The minor key air is no. 515 in Petrie's Complete Irish Music (p.130) if anyone wants to look. Interesting to compare this to the early setting of the jig in O'Farrell:

http://digital.nls.uk/special-collectio ... d=87780026

The thought of (some) dance tunes originating as sped up versions of song airs is an appealing one. And an air segueing into a dance version of the same tune is still a classic bit of piping showmanship.