The Home Ruler (hornpipe)

The Home Ruler is a lovely Irish hornpipe, well-known in the Irish tune tradition and played wherever Irish music is played.

It is a great hornpipe to learn if you are not familiar with hornpipes, as to my ears, it has a really ‘typical’ hornpipe feel – brilliant for learning to get the bounce and rhythm we associate with playing hornpipes.

The Home Ruler is in the key of D major.

The video below will give you an introdution to the tune. The full 30 minute tutorial will be part of my Complete Irish Fiddler course.

The full video covers the whole tune played slowly phrase by phrase so that you work it out by ear. Then discussion of hornpipe rhythm and bowing, as well as suggested bowed slurring patterns for the whole tune, and ornamentation includes cuts, triplets and casadhs.

I really hope that you enjoy learning this great hornpipe. It pairs nicely with other hornpipes – I especially like playing it with ‘The Lone Bush’, a great hornpipe by Ed Reavy, or The Bachelor hornpipe, which is in G major. You can also move from this hornpipe in to a reel in D major instead, which creates a nice change in tempo!

The Home Ruler was written by Frank McCollam (1910-1973), a fiddler (and piper) and composer of tunes from Ballycastle in County Antrim.

Frank was a contemporary of Sean Ryan and Cathal McConnell (of the Boys of the Lough), and was a well known musician in the area.

It is natural to imagine that the title – The Home Ruler – might refer to Irish politics. But apparently, that isn’t correct.

According to Dick Glasgow, who spoke to a good friend of Frank’s, Frank named the tune for his wife, Sally – apparently many of the men in the area used to refer to their wives as ‘The Home Ruler’. We hope affectionately!