The Minstrel Boy

This article is about the song. For the novel by A. J. Cronin, see The Minstrel Boy (novel). For the album by Donovan, see Minstrel Boy (album).

The opening bars of "The Minstrel Boy". By request of Moore to James Power during publication, the harmonized air of the song (as found in the Gibson-Massie collection of the Irish Melodies at Queen's University Belfast) is in the key G major, whilst this, the solo of the song, is (in Moore's words) a "note lower" in F major.[1]
The Minstrel Boy
As played on violin by wikipedian Endersslay
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"The Minstrel Boy" is an Irish song written by Irish poet Thomas Moore (1779–1852) and published as part of his Irish Melodies.[2] Moore himself came to be nicknamed "The Minstrel Boy",[3] and indeed it is the title of Leonard Strong's 1937 biography of Moore.

It is Roud Folk Song Index no. 13867.[4]

  1. ^ McCleave 2017, p. 55.
  2. ^ Leniston 1992, p. ix.
  3. ^ Simpson 2018, pp. 384–385.
  4. ^ "The Minstrel Boy". Vaughan Williams Memorial Library.