Molly Brallaghan

A comic stage-Irish song of a jilted lover (“Ma’am dear, did ye never hear of purty Molly Brallaghan?”), of unknown authorship, from the same nineteenth-century Barney-and-Judy-Brallaghan song family as “Barney Brallaghan’s Courtship.” The melody has deep instrumental roots: TTA traces the tune family back to “Cossey’s Jig” in Jackson’s Celebrated Tunes (1774), with the reel-time form circulating as “Green Fields of America,” and piper Willie Clancy recorded it as “Pretty Molly Brannigan” (The Pipering of Willie Clancy vol. 1, Claddagh).