Tyrrell's March, 1597

Tyrrell's March, according to sheet music in a 1981 issue of the Tyrrell Family History Society (England) newsletter, was composed by W. O'Farrell in 1597. The following is a synthetic bagpipes rendition, played directly from the computerized (using MagicScore School 5) sheet music, with the tempo increased substantially to keep the march from sounding like a funeral dirge. (Get your volume control ready!)

Tyrrell's March (MIDI, 3 KB) . . . . . (Can't play it?)

We don't know how Captain Richard Tyrrell, a valiant and celebrated Irish chief in the rebellion against Elizabethan England, might have been related to our Roger Terrill (who would have been about a generation younger). It's possible that they were not related at all—but we include the march and the following link to the related tale of Captain Tyrrell's ambush of a small English army because they are interesting, and tell us something of life in England in Roger's time. The tale is in the form of a ballad, by Robert Dwyer Joyce (1836-1883), an Irish-Boston physician and poet, and student of Irish history.

Tyrrell's Pass, from Ballads of Irish Chivalry, by R. D. Joyce, 1908 (PDF, 23KB)

(CWT, June 2009)