No other hornpipe has invaded my consciousness like this one. When hearing Tony MacMahon play it on Ciarán Mac Mathúna’s ‘A Job of Journeywork’ programme on our home radio, I was struck by the power of the tune. Parts of it stayed with me for days and even weeks. It was a long time before I heard it again, this time played by Offaly’s own John Bowe. However, I was prepared with a Grundig reel-to-reel recorder, which I had bought a few weeks earlier. This was April 1964. Ten years later, I heard Tommy Potts play it at his home in Walkinstown, Dublin. Tommy composed the tune’s sixth part and usually played it in G minor. He also (in his noble way) referred to it as ‘The Inebriated Mariner.’

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