A Collection of the most Celebrated Irish Tunes proper for the violin, German Flute or Hautboy

Printed in Dublin by John and William Neal, 1724

This Irish printed book contains 49 tunes, one of which (Pléaráca na Ruarcach) is set with a bass, an Italianate setting credited to Lorenzo Bocchi. Many of the tunes are by Carolan, though a number are not attributed to him here. Other tunes are from the harp repertory.

The book is printed on one side of the paper only. Apart from three pages which are facing to minimise page turns, the music is printed on the rectos and the versos are blank.

Only one copy is known to survive, that owned by Edward Bunting and now preserved with his manuscripts in Queen's University Library (special collections 4/31). A Facsimile edition by Nicholas Carolan was published in 1986 by the Folk Music Society of Ireland / Cumann Cheol Tire Eireann, but is currently out of print.

Facsimile of p6, showing the start of Pléaráca na Ruarcach given in Sandra Joyce, An Introduction to O'Carolan's Music in Eighteenth-Century Printed Collections in "Irish Musical Studies 4", ed. P.F. Devine & H. White 1996, p.298

Simon Chadwick