Chief O'Neill's Favorite

Learned from folklorist, song collector, and skillful melodic banjo clawhammer picker Andy Cahan. I heard of him through his collections in Virginia with Alice Gerard, especially of Roscoe Parrish. This tune is one that Francis O'Neill published in his eminent book of Irish Music published in the first decade of the 1900's. It was named his favorite by the man, Edward Cronin of Tiperary, who played it for him in Chicago when O'Neill was chief of police and collected Irish tunes as a hobby. It's also the first hornpipe notated in that book with 1,850 selections. Perhaps it really is his favorite.