Andyrhydycreuau - Posted - 03/14/2025:  01:58:57

TOTW 14/3/25 "Christ Church Cathedral"

This tune was written by John Sheahan of Dubliners fame.

It was written as a fiddle tune, but its G Major key makes it a lovely tune for five string banjo in standard G tuning, and it's structure really works well for clawhammer.

There are no banjo versions that I can find on YouTube except mine. Not only is it lovely, it's also easy to play. It has one drop thumb in the very first measure, but this can easily be replaced with a hammer on anyway.

Here are said Dubliners with the tune

youtu.be/A2eZEgv0hNY?si=R2imOMAuXa80d6YL

Some scores and a mandolin tab here:

nigelgatherer.com/tunes/tunes/C/ChChC.html



Here is the tune's inclusion on "The Session" thesession.org/tunes/6249

As a modern tune there is not a lot of history to relate, except that as a session tune it appears to have become very popular in Ireland and Scotland very quickly. There are a fair number of North American versions out there too, so it must be a feature of sessions on that side of the Atlantic.

My clawhammer tab with fiddle score is below.



My YouTube of the tune is below, and so is my walk through of the tune.



It's lovely, so I hope you enjoy learning it.



It would be lovely to hear your versions, so please have a go, and upload your versions to share here.

Edited by - Andyrhydycreuau on 03/14/2025 02:00:34

VIDEO: Christchurch Cathedral. An Irish Clawhammer Banjo tune. Standard G tuning.
(click to view)

VIDEO: Christ Church Cathedral. Clawhammer Banjo. Standard G tuning.
(click to view)

Christ Church Cathedral

 

Tim Jumper - Posted - 03/14/2025:  16:55:03

Good job, Andrew, and thanks.
The Dubliners were "ninety" -- the first Irish super group. What a lineup!

Andyrhydycreuau - Posted - 03/15/2025:  01:11:35

quote:

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Originally posted by Tim Jumper

Good job, Andrew, and thanks.

The Dubliners were "ninety" -- the first Irish super group. What a lineup!

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Thanks for the comment, this is a lovely tune, easy to play and up beat, with no capo. 

A supergroup for sure!

JanetB - Posted - 03/15/2025:  19:34:43

Christ Church Cathedral is a real beauty of a tune. Your playing does it justice, Andy. The way you go up the neck and seem to hit a harmonic is ethereal. Is that what you did? After looking for images of the actual church in Dublin, I was inspired by the music all the more. The image below is what I played around with on the iPhone painting edit app called BeCasso.  You can see the original photo here on this Tripadvisor site to visit Dublin Christ Church Cathedral.  It's apparently a popular tourist site.

(original photo courtesy of Tripadvisor, painting edit done on BeCasso iPhone app)



I tried the tune in equivalent to double C tuning on the cello banjo and found it mesmerizing.

VIDEO: Christ Church Cathedral
(click to view)

Christ Church Cathedral (CH) tab