The Old Orange Flute
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Old Orange Flute (also spelt Auld Orange Flute) is a folk song originating in Ireland. It is often associated with the Orange Order. Despite this, its humour ensured a certain amount of cross-community appeal, especially in the period before the commencement of The Troubles in the late 1960s, and it has also been recorded by artists better-known for songs associated with Irish nationalism, such as The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem and The Dubliners.
The tune itself, often referred to as Villikins and his Dinah after a music hall song of the 1850s (and known in America as Sweet Betsy from Pike), has been used with many variations for a large number of folk songs and sea shanties, and has been called the "primal tune".[1] Related fiddle tunes are found as early as the 18th century. The Old Orange Flute, however, originated more recently, probably in the 19th century, when a variant of the tune was used to set an anonymously authored broadside.
The earliest known records of the words appeared in 1907 in two books: A Collection of Orange and Protestant Songs[2] and The golden treasury of Irish songs and lyrics.[3] The latter, published in New York, classifies the song as "Anonymous street ballad".
Several books[4] attribute authorship of the words to one Nugent Bohem, but this is a misreading of the title of a book containing the song from the Dublin publisher Nugent & Co: "Nugent's Bohemian Songster".
It has been claimed[5] that the words were written by a nationalist as a parody of Orangeism and were first published in the nationalist journal Sinn Fein on 2 November 1912. This is clearly refuted by the existence of the two books from 1907. The publication in Sinn Fein,[6] under the title The Magic Flute, carries no explanation but a facetious attribution to Edward Carson, the unionist politician.