Land’s End

O’Brien wrote the tune in 3/4 time and plays it faster than a waltz. Its three beats are usually split into two even notes each, not the three of a 9/8 slip jig, which is how some players have written it down. Transcriptions put it in D Mixolydian, in three parts.

He has come back to it more than once. It is on the self-titled album by New Grange, a group in which O’Brien played bouzouki, mandolin and banjo alongside Alison Brown, Darol Anger, Mike Marshall, Todd Phillips and Phil Aaberg. That album was issued by Compass in 1999. In 2005 he recorded it again on Fiddler’s Green (Sugar Hill), paired with “Chasin’ Talon.” That track has O’Brien on mandolin, Casey Driessen on fiddle, John Doyle on guitar, Seamus Egan on low whistle, Dirk Powell on bass and Kenny Malone on hand drums. Fiddler’s Green won the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album.