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FAMOUS SONGS
the composer of the original " Lochaber." This is believed to have been carried into Scotland by Thomas O'Connallon, bora five years later than O'Reilly at Cloonmahon in the county of Sligo. O'Neill calls him the " Great harper," and states that he attained to city honours— "they made him, as I heard, a ' Baillie/ or kind of Burgomaster"—in Edinburgh, where he died. His celebrity In Ireland was very great, and he left his mark in Scotland. Many songs of praise were written by other bards in honour of O'Con-nallon's wonderful facility.
In further support of the contention that the air of Lochaber is Irish, I would draw attention to a work in the British Museum, entitled " New Poems, Songs, Prologues, and Epilogues, never before printed, by Thomas Duffett, and set by the most Eminent Musicians about the Town, London, 1676." In this volume is a song be-ginning, " Since Coelia's my Foe," which, instead of having the name of the composer, as is the case with the other pieces, is headed, " Song to the Irish Tune," and this very Irish tune is the one the Scottish claim as Scottish, presumably, because Allan Ramsay wrote words to the melody, but Ramsay was not born until 1696, twenty years after the publication of Duffett's song to the Irish tune; and the "Tea-Table
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