'The Planting Stick' is a variant of the venerable jig 'Bryan O'Lynn', a tune I first learned from my grandmother, Elizabeth Collins (née Rochford). A number of versions of 'Bryan O'Lynn' are to be found in this collection. The tune appears in Patrick W. Joyce's collection Ancient Irish Music as 'The Planting Stick'. However, the first time I heard the version which Maeve Donnelly plays for us on this track was on a cassette tape recorded in New York in the 1950s, played by an unknown fiddle player. Paddy Canny from Tulla in County Clare was in the company in New York that same evening, and he played yet another version of 'Bryan O'Lynn'.