Máire Dhall
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O'Carolan
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Transcription: by Darryl D. Bush
"Máire Dhall", also known as "Blind Mary", is an Irish planxty in 2/4 time and D Major.<br> The tune is attributed to blind Irish harper Turlough O'Carolan (1670-1738), although<br> Donal O'Sullivan could find no incontrovertible evidence of its origin. It was copied by<br> Chief Fancis O'Neill from Co. Cork collector William Forde's two-volume Encyclopaedia of<br> Melody (c. 1845), which carried the attribution to O'Carolan. Unfortunately, only the first<br> volume survives in the O'Neill papers donated to Notre Dame University and it is presumed<br> that "Máire Dhall" is in the second, a copy of which has not been located in Ireland,<br> Britain or the United States. Donal O'Sullivan (1958) does not think the piece characteristic<br> of O'Carolan's melodies and says "But for Forde's high authority we should hardly be justified in<br> including it" in his collected O'Carolan works. If Carolan did compose the tune, it was<br> probably for another blind harper named Máire Dhall (Blind Mary) who lived in his locality<br> and whom he undoubtedly knew. Máire Dhall was a professional harper (one of the few women<br> recorded as being in the profession) who taught another blind woman, Rose Mooney, who<br> appeared at the Belfast Harp Meeting of 1792, one of the last gatherings of ancient Irish<br> harpers). Harper Charles O'Conor's diary mentions that in October, 1726, his two younger<br> brothers were learning harp from a woman harper named Máire Dhall.<br> It was printed in Complete Collection of Carolan's Irish Tunes (1984), P.M. Haverty's One<br> Hundred Irish Airs vol. 3 (1859), S. Johnson's The Kitchen Musician No. 3: Carolan (1983),<br> Joyce's Old Irish Folk Music and Songs (1909), Ó Canainn's Traditional Slow Airs of Ireland (1995),<br> O'Neill's Music of Ireland: 1850 Melodies (1903), O'Sullivan's Carolan: The Life, Times and<br> Music of an Irish Harper (1958) and Ossian's The Complete Works of O'Carolan (1989).<br> It was recorded by Derek Bell on Carolan's Receipt (1987) and The Chieftains on Bonaparte's<br> Retreat (1976).<br>
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