Talk:The Irish Washerwoman

Notability
I don't really know how to establish any song as being "notable", but this tune appears on most any collection of Irish instrumentals you would find: Leroy Anderson; Boston Pops; Andre Rieu; Hooked on Classics segment on Irish songs; and probably a gazillion others. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 23:07, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Really?
The tune is traditionally repeated only twice (sometimes thrice): AABB; AABB much less than most pop/rock songs, I don't know if this qualifies as "many". Also, there is no reason that it should increase its tempo, as jigs are tunes meant for dancing, changing tempo mid-tune would be considered inappropriate as it would upset the dancers and the other musicians. Also, it rarely comes to a "direct stop" as you say; it is often put in a set with about two other tunes, and even if it is the last tune, it will probably taper off like most sets do.

You seemed to have derived all of you "facts" from a single video performance of this tune. As this performance is played majorly by classical musicians, perhaps this is not the best way to understand a traditional tune - just as you probably wouldn't go to an Irish traditional fiddler to interpret the music of Handel or Beethoven.

Also, this tune has a long and contraversial history, which I believe is noteworthy to look into.

Best Regaurds-

JP —Preceding unsigned comment added by Skeintod (talk • contribs) 14:22, 30 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Feel free to work on improving the article. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 14:30, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Copyedited
Richard asr (talk) 08:18, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

MacTavish
Surely this is most well known as ‘MacTavish’? Why no mention here? Overlordnat1 (talk) 21:02, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I've known about The Irish Washerman all of my life, but never heard of 'MacTavish' until reading your comment just now. But I did a quick online search and saw several references to McTavish Is Dead so I just added that to the article. Karenthewriter (talk) 04:20, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks. My dad remembers singing it when he was younger, so it must have been around in the 60s, if not earlier (rather than 1983). There’s a second verse I know of too: ‘McTavish had suffered from peritonitis, his brother had suffered from chronic bronchitis and both of them died and oh how they cried when each of them realised the other had died!’ Overlordnat1 (talk) 01:37, 20 December 2021 (UTC)