🎵 Key: G

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🎵 Key: G

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Bill Malley (b. 1907?) was a farmer and fiddler from lower Glandree, County Clare, whose playing was characterized by a rhythmic pulse and syncopated style with very rhythmic bow patterns suitable for dancing[1]. The name is sometimes given as “Bill O’Malley”. He was a regular playing partner of concertina player John Naughton (1911 – 1997) concertina, and flute player Joe Bane, also from Glandree. This passage, quoted by Helen O’Shea[2], mentions (O’)Malley.

The ‘speaker’ is fiddler Paddy Canny’s brother Jack, who recalled both spontaneous and planned dances in East Clare in the 1920’s:

“In the winter, on cold frosty nights, there was a fiddle-player called O’Malley, and we’d talk nice to him and we’d ask him to play for a set, and we’d dance a Clare Set to get the frost off our bones […] They used to have relations back from the States and we had a big party— sometimes they called it a hooley—which means that all the locals are invited and they take out all the furniture from the main room and it’s turned into a dancehall. And as soon as the musicians come in, they start playing and all the young people start dancing. The older people are in the back room, talking about different things, about the weather and politics and whatever, and all the local gossip. And all the younger ones, the young teenagers, they’d be all out dancing the sets and waltzes, and all the different dances that they could handle.”