The Piper in the Cave / An Ghaoth Aniar Aneas (The South-West Wind)

“The Piper in the Cave” is associated with the fiddling family of Francie and Mickey Byrne of Kilcar, Co. Donegal, also known as “The Deargs”; we have also heard it from the fiddling of John Doherty. Doherty associated it with the story of a piper who entered an underground cave network between Maghera, near Ardara, and Glencolumbkille. According to John, this was the last tune that the piper was heard to play before he was “attacked by some wild animal or some wild beast or something, and he never returned.” The jig that follows is called “An Ghaoth Aniar Aneas (The South-West Wind)”. It is an unusual setting of “Connie the Soldier”, learned by Ciarán from Dermot Byrne.