Music of Ireland
The version of The Coolin printed by Edward Bunting in "The Ancient Music of Ireland " (1840) was taken from the playing of Donnchadh Ó Hámsaigh (Dennis Hempson), who himself claimed to have learned it from the playing of Cornelius Lyons early in the previous century. Though Bunting's setting claims to present the tune with variations, it in fact appears to print only Lyons' once-fashionable baroque variations while omitting the main tune. Patrick Weston Joyce, who said that Bunting's version was "wanting in simplicity", printed a version of the tune collected from the playing of a fiddler, Hugh O'Beirne, that he said was very similar to that he recalled being sung in his youth in 1830s County Limerick.