Trip to Skye / The Curlews – Two great Irish Tunes for Fiddle or Mandolin

Some days ago I have listened to Folk Alley and heard a recording that I liked immediately. This was a medley of two Irish tunes played by Eilen Ivers (fiddle) and John Whelan (accordion): Trip to Skye by John Whelan and a tune that is called Darach DeBruns but that is actually a tune named The Curlews and was composed by Josephine Keegan

The recording I heard has been published in 1987 in the album Fresh Takes:

Fresh Takes– John Whelan, Eileen Ivers

Label: Green Linnet
Released: 1987

This recording with Eileen Ivers and John Whelan is also contained in some other collections with Irish music, and I have found several videos at youtube. I have selected the follwing video:

John Whelan & Eileen Ivers – Trip To Skye Darach DeBruns

Trip to Skye – John Whelan

I have found the sheet music for Trip to Skye at thesession.org and on some other sites, you can find the links at the end of this post.

Here is another version of Trip to Skye, played by the group Skolvan:

Skolvan – Trip to Skye

Playlist Trip to Skye

The Curlews by Josephine Keegan

I have first looked for the sheet music for the tune Darach DeBrun’s gesucht, but I was not very successfull. Finaly I found out the right name of the tune, and I have also found the sheet music for The Curlews by Josephine Keegan. This tune is often found with the name “The Curlew”, but the originbal name is “The Curlews”, the tune has been named after the Curlew Mountains in Ireland:

Note by Cliff Moses: Greetings, I was just looking at your website for chords to the tune ”Trip to Skye” and noticed the entries to the “The Curlew”.  The correct title, as written by Josephine Keegan is “The Curlews”.  This can be verified by looking at her tune book The Keegan Tunes.  Incidentally, the title refers to the Curlew Mountains in Ireland not the Curlew bird, also found in Ireland and the subject of several other Irish curlew tunes.  (your site does not say that, but many people assume that.)  Josephine and I recorded this tune about ten years ago as the title track on my CD.

Playlist The Curlews (Josephine Keegan)

Additional Information

* Sheet music Trip to Skye

Sheet music Trip to Skye for Irish tin whistle in b-minor: http://www.whistleworkshop.co.uk/trip_to_.htm

Sheet music Trip to Skye for mandolin in a-minor: http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/folk-music-mandolin-tab/trip_to_skye_%28j_whelan%29.htm

sheet music Trip to Skye at thesession.org: http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/3363

* Sheet music The Curlews

Sheet music and TAB for octave mandolin / mandolin with chords for The Curlews at Irish Guitar: http://banwarth.free.fr/engguitare.htm

Sheet music for Darach DeBrun’s: http://abcnotation.com/tunePage?a=trillian.mit.edu/~jc/music/abc/mirror/EdWosika/Darach_DeBruns_1/0000

Sheet music for  The Curlews at thesession.org: http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/174

Sheet music for  The Curlews at freesheetmusic.net: http://www.freesheetmusic.net/irish.html

TABs for The Curlews in the Mandolin Cafe: http://www.mandolincafe.com/tab/curlews.txt

* Websites

Homepage Eileen Ivers: http://www.eileenivers.com/

about Josephine Keegan: http://irishtunecomposers.weebly.com/josephine-keegan.html

Few of her tunes have yet to enter the standard repertoire. Perhaps her best known tune and now a common session tune, is The Curlew as recorded by Altan.

Homepage John Whelan: http://johnwhelanmusic.com/

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