Where did the tune originate?
The tune used for “Danny Boy” is a true folk melody, originally called “Derry Air,” because it was first written down in County Derry, Ireland, in the town of Limavady. Once Ireland became an official part of Britain, the county was renamed “Londonderry,” with the choice of name somewhat determined by one’s political views. But whatever the name of the county, the origin story seems fairly straightforward: Jame Ross, a collector of Irish traditional folk music, heard a harpist (or a fiddler, depending on the version, and usually identified as blind) performing in the street outside her house and rushed out to copy down the tune he was playing. Unfortunately, she neglected to get the performer’s name, but she sent in her notated manuscript, along with a number of others she had collected. to the musicologist George Petrie, whose 1855 book The Ancient Music of Ireland listed the tune as an anonymous air but with a note attributing its collection to Ross. The tune was published as an instrumental piece with no lyrics but quickly became extremely popular with songwriters. The most well-known of these settings is the song “Danny Boy,” written in 1910 by an English lawyer named Frederic Weatherly. The meaning of the lyrics has been consistently misunderstood, however, leading to the next question: