Author: maldonm

Welcome!
On this page you’ll find resources and links to accompany the workshop Playing for Irish Set Dances | The Connemara Reel Set, hosted by Maldon Meehan and Betsy Branch.

This workshop is part of a series leading up to the 3rd Friday Céilí on May 15th. For this céilí we’ll have an open band, and we’re inviting both adult and youth musicians to join us. You’re welcome to play for any of the sets, whether or not you’ve attended the workshops.

During the workshops we’ll be crowd-sourcing tunes from participants and finding common repertoire that suits the dances, the regional styles, and the lift of each set or county. We are delighted to be teaching this series and genuinely excited to see what grows from this project.

When it comes to set dancing, sometimes it’s the player who makes the dance—and sometimes it’s the tune itself. More often than not, it’s both.

On this resource page are a few links and examples of music and musicians for the Connemara Set and for Connemara-style dancing in general—whether you’re playing for a sean-nós dancer or for other sets.

Right now our workshop is focused on the Connemara Reel Set, but these tunes can also work nicely for other Connemara dances:

• Connemara Reel Set
• Connemara Jig Set
• Aran Set
• Inis Oírr
• Inis Meáin
• Claddagh Set

All of these traditions can share the Connemara step—or a close cousin of its rhythm and lift—which means the same core repertoire can give dancers that shared pulse and drive that makes them want to dance their Connemara steps.

I have extensive Spotify and YouTube playlist resources available. You’ll find direct links to the Connemara resources if you’d like to save them to your own accounts. They’re also embedded here so you can play them right on this page.

• Spotify: Connemara musicians & tunes – Musicians from Connemara.
• Spotify: Connemara Reel Set – Johnny Connolly, Matt Cunningham, Johny Reidy. Johnny Connolly is from Connemara and I like his tracts most for the Connemara set.
• Youtube: Music | Connemara Musicians & Tunes
• Youtube: Set Dancing | Connemara & Aran Island Sets

Recources:

• Folder: “Music for May 15 Ceili.” 
• 2025 May 15th Ceili Tune/Dance List – Work in progress
• Most Popluar Set dances as of October 2025
• List of All The Set dances by county – Links in the document take you to the instructions for the dance and in some cases sugested tunes for the dances. Very much work in progress and overwhelming, but it’s great to see them arranged by county.
• Connemara Resources – links to musicians, music and video playlists. This document has direct links to current bands playing fo rthe Connemara set and more.
• Irish dance styles and tune types -All the types of Irish dance.
• Nerdy spreadsheet of # of bars and tune combinations – might be help full for picking out bar lenghts that don’t line up well. 

Set Dancing

• Dance Minder – Michael Harrison’s site. The most comprenhinsive collection of Irish set dance insgructions wiht links to videos, instructions and musicial recourses.

Connemara Set – Callers notes, links and more. This is a document that I use when calling and teaching the Connemara Reel Set. You will see this dance writen as “The Connemara Reel Set”, The Connemara Set, The Connemara and Connemara. It’s all the same set.

• Connemara Set
  • Figure 1 Reels 160 bars
  • Figure 2 Reels 192 bars
  • Figure 3 Reels 184 bars
  • Figure 4 Maggie in the Woods 96

Connemara Reel Set

Folder “Music for May 15 Ceili.” – all practice recordings can be found in this folder.

From Betsy: To sum up, here’s where each tune goes for the Connemara dance.  Each set has 2 recordings:  84 bpm, and 108 bpm (for the reels) or 116 bpm )for the polka).

Figure 1: Miss McCloud’s (G) 3x / Miss McCloud’s (A) 2x

**Note on Miss McCloud’s:  there are millions of versions of this!  I chose an opening phrase that I heard on lots of recordings of dances.  This tune is much easier in G if you play whistle or flute. It’s much easier in A if you are a fiddler.  So that’s why both keys are represented!  Whatever version you play will be fine.  (For you whistles and flutes, I recorded the 1st time through in A with no G#’s.  In case you want a variation that works without that note!)

Figure 2:  New Mown Meadow (Em/A) 3x / Silver Spear (D) 3x

Figure 3: Miss Monahan’s (D) 2x / Humours of Tulla (D) 4x / Miss Monahan’s (D) 1.75x (AAB)

Figure 4:  Maggie in the Woods (G) 3x

Enjoy, and let me know if I screwed anything up!  

Céilí Bands

links go directly to where they are dancing/playing the Connemara Set if you want to dive into the dances more. The tunes are not listed, but you may know some of them and want to included them in your own Connemara set list.

• Swallows Tail Ceili BandConnemara Set
  • Swallow’s Facebook 
  • About the Swallows Tail Ceili Band
• Ui Bhriain Connemara Set – switching to a bunch of different tunes. Miss McClouds, New Mowen Meadow – it’s almost like they are playing every typical Connemara tune in one figure. A sampler of them all and the dancers are loving it! Oh and Tam Lin is in there too! Everything and the kitchen sink!
• Piper’s Cross Connemara Set
• Johnny Reidy Connemara Set – this band tends to play VERY fast.
• Raging Wind Connemara Set
• Star of Munster Connemara Set
• Ceol na Mara Connemara Set
• The Tulla Connemara Set – from Clare.
• The Kilfenora Connemara Set – from Clare