1894.] on Old Irish Song. Ill 



pedantic attempt has been made to specify certain Irish musical 

 characteristics, the absence of which will prove one of the airs in 

 dispute to be Scottish. But Sir Eobert Stewart justly points out 

 that the so-called unfailing characteristic of Irish, as of Chinese, 

 melody to omit the fourth and seventh of the scale, is by no means a 

 sure test. In many Irish airs these intervals are wanting, in others 

 they both exist. In some they are omitted in the first strain and are 

 present in the second part of the air. Again, the presence of the sub- 

 mediant or sixth of the scale, supposed to be a never-failing test of 

 an Irish air, is equally emphatic in the Scottish air * Auld Lang 

 Syne,' and many other Scottish tunes. 



The Scotch airs may be roughly classed as Highland tunes and 

 Lowland tunes. The first class have a close affinity with the Irish 

 music, and no wonder, for not only are the Highland Scotch of North 

 Irish descent, but the Scotch of the West coast were for centuries 

 closely connected with their kinsfolk across the North Channel, and 

 a constant exchange of minstrelsy must have therefore gone on 

 between them. The Lowland Scotch tunes form a large and dis- 

 tinct body of national melodies, composed by national musicians, and 

 not found in Irish collections. In Ireland there is a much larger 

 body of airs acknowledged on all hands to be purely Irish and not 

 found in Scotch collections. 



Outside these airs there is a large number common to and claimed 

 by both countries. As Dr. Joyce pithily puts it, " In regard to a 

 considerable proportion of them it is now impossible to determine 

 whether they were originally Irish or Scotch. A few are claimed in 

 Ireland that are certainly Scotch, but a very large number claimed 

 by Scotland are really Irish, of which the well-known air ' Eileen 

 Aroon ' or ' Robin Adair ' is an example. From the earliest times 

 it was a common practice among the Irish harpers to travel in Scot- 

 land. How close was the musical connection between the two 

 countries is hinted by the Four Masters when, in recording the death 

 of Mac Carroll, they call him the chief minstrel of Ireland and 

 Scotland ! and there is abundant evidence to show that this connection 

 was kept up till towards the end of the last century." Ireland was long 

 the school for Scottish Harpers, as it was for those of Wales : " Till 

 within the memory of persons still living, the school for Highland 

 poetry and music was Ireland, and thither professional men were 

 sent to be accomplished in these arts." Such facts as these sufficiently 

 explain why so many Irish airs have become naturalised in Scotland, i 



" It is not correct to separate and contrast the music of Ireland 

 and that of Scotland as if they belonged to two different races. They 

 are in reality an emanation direct from the heart of one Celtic people ; 

 and they form a body of national melody superior to that of any 

 other nation of the world." 



[A. P. G.] 



