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Sligo / Bronx fiddler James ‘Lad’ O’Beirne is credited with composing this reel. He named it as a gesture of protest against Prohibition, which for many Irish musicians was an irritant unsuitable for social occasions. ‘A drop of the crathur / The best thing in nature,’ as the song goes. Prohibition was perhaps a minor setback during the 1920s, but was overcome with secret sessions of music, and the ‘craythur’ being stowed in bathtubs in case of a police raid.
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