"Hunt the Squirrel" is a country dance tune from the Playford collection, also known as "The Geud Man of Ballangigh." "Road to Lisdoonvarna" can trace its roots to a Jacobite era song, "All the Way to Galway," which turned into a march or reel and is supposed to have been the precursor to "Yankee Doodle." (If you hum "Road to Lisdoonvarna" slowly and count it in two instead of three, there is a vague resemblance). In any case, the tune continued its musical metamorphosis and had turned into a jig by the late 19th century where it was associated with a match-making fair of the town of Lisdoonvarna, County Limerick. "Haste To the Wedding" started as a song in the 1767 pantomime "The Elopement," performed at London's Drury Lane Theatre. The overture for the production was written by T. Giordani, and published in London in 1768, although it is not known if he also wrote the incidental music for the play.1 Like many other popular stage songs of the time, it soon found its way into the country-dance repertoire. An English country dance is still done to the tune today, as is an Irish variation, "The Siege of Carrick."
