Sweet Insicara

[Aaronjw]

I've been listening to Grey Larsen's CD "The Green House" quite a bit lately, partially in order to get a better ear for the Irish style. One tune that I've kind of fallen in love with is Sweet Insicara; the way it goes back and forth between minor and major is beautiful. I would love to learn it, but I can't find any trace of it on the internet. It was apparently written by one John Fitzgerald, according to the CD's liner notes. I'm usually pretty good at either learning a tune by ear, or transcribing it onto sheet music, but the tune's free rhythm and form make that very difficult. Do any of you have the music for it and could upload it somewhere? Or know what book it's in? The liner notes say that Fitzgerald lived from 1825 to 1910, and it seems to me that it would be difficult for a tune to survive this long without being put down in writing somewhere.

[MTGuru]

Try looking instead for "Sweet Inniscarra" or variants of that: Iniscara, Inniscara, Iniscarra, Inis Cara. Insicara is a mistake.

[Aaronjw]

Shoot, that's my mistake; no idea why I repeatedly read it like that. That said, I'm still not finding anything other than references to to Larsen's CD.

[MTGuru]

Well, Googling "Sweet Inniscarra" turns up 28000+ hits, including a Mudcat thread with some possible leads. For example, that Fitzgerald wrote the original words/poem as "The Exile's Return", and the music may derive from Chauncey Olcott's waltz setting. But I don't know what melody Larsen & League used since I don't have the album. Sorry.