BB's Irish Traditional Tune Library
Compositions of Turloch O Carolan
tunefolder 14
The CAROLAN folder contains compositions from O'Sullivan's "Complete Works
of Turlough O'Carolan" and from the "O'Carolan's Compositions" section of
O'Neill's "Music of Ireland" ("The 1850").
Tunes whose ABC file numbers begin with 141 are from O'Sullivan.
Those beginning with 142 are from O'Neill.
Original ABC transcriptions of this material were done by Chris Gilb
and Vince Brennan.
Click here for the master index of all tunes included in folder 14.
As of February 2026, the folder 14 tunes in ITTL will be subdivided according
to the initial letter of the tune name into
folder A to L and folder M to Y.
Each folder will contain a text file (in RTF format
to support links), a HTML "page" file containing a sound component (see note
on "ABC Transcription Tools" below), and a
PDF formatted index file listing all the tunes in that folder.
I have changed keys or added alternative measures in cases where the Gilb/Brennan
material went out of a comfortable range for a normal traditional instrument. I
have also added measure numbers at the beginning of each staff in the longer pieces.
(Users can add their own measure numbers by including a %%barnumbers 0
command in the ABC file header anywhere between the X and K fields.)
Any changes should be shown in the comment lines of the ABC file. Since I didn't
see the necessity of making the comments printable (and hence avoiding
formatting/spacing issues that I would rather avoid), I've preceded them with a %.
For certain tunes I've "simplified", there's a link to a separate .rtf file
containing the "source versions". The ID number of the source
version is the same as the X number of the edited file and can be
used for easy searching.s
The new formatting of the files was accomplished courtesy of
Michael Eskin's fine ABC Transcription Tools app. This allowed
me to keep notation, sound, and ABC in one place. The embedded
sound file will remain in place even when the file is relocated, e.g. to
the user's hard drive.
My feeling however is that anyone - harpists or others - attempting pieces of this type
will be relying more on the notation than the reproduced sound.
The tempo concepts as represented by the Q: field are strictly my own and of course can
be easily changed to suit the individual's requirements. I call users' attention
to the various tools available in the Play window that will make speed changes and
other aspects of the learning process quite simple.
For users who like working with ABC, the underlying ABC file for each tune
is also easily available from the Tool by closing the Play window and
clicking on the arrows in the upper right hand corner of the screen.
The ABCs are formatted primarily to work with ABC Tools but will
open in other ABC transcription tools like EasyABC.
In the ABCs, you can disregard any commands that begin with % or %%. They
have to do mainly with the typesetting and sound reproduction
and won't affect the basic functions of the file.
Comments including suggestions for improvement are always welcome.
Bill Black
February 2026