CHRISTMAS EVE
CHRISTMAS EVE
(AKA TOMMY COEN’S REEL)
Christmas Eve (Tommy Coen’s reel) played by Dolores Keane (flute) and Mairtin Byrnes (fiddle) from the album There Was a Maid.
It may or may not be true. A writer on www.session.org was told several years ago that “Christmas Eve” was a composition of the Galway -style fiddle player Tommy Coen, who did not have a name for the tune. It was broadcast on the Irish radio station RTE on a programme on Christmas eve in 1955, and so the name “Christmas Eve ” was attached to the tune, and it has been known as that ever since.
From Fiddler’s Companion:
A popular session tune composed by Urrachree, Aughrim, East County Galway, fiddler Tommy Coen (1910-1974). Coen, who later lived in Salthill, was a conductor for Connemara buses during the day. A story about the title that has been circulating is that Coen’s tune was called “Christmas Eve” by the leader of a ceilidh band from Coen’s area who had been having a fight or dispute with the fiddler. He was invited with his band to play for a radio show in Dublin just before the Yule, and when introducing the tune names they were to play he choose not to mention Coen, but said the name of the reel was “Christmas Eve” because of the proximity of the holiday and to irk Coen. No one seems to know if the composer himself had a title for it.