The Irish Rover - guitar tab, notes and lyrics
“The Irish Rover” is an Irish folk song. The origin is not fully known, but the song has been attributed to the songwriter J. M. Crofts of which little is known. The lyrics with many verses tell the story of a ship with the name of the song and begins with the ship sailing from the cove outside the British town Cork. It's uncertain when the song was first published, one source states the first source from 1937, but other sources claim older dates. The song has been recorded many times and the first occasion may have been in 1941 by David Kane.
The music transcriptions of the song with tabs and notes are available for download as PDFs. It's free for personal use only.
Melody & full accompaniment
Free tabs and notes plus sound.
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The Irish Rover guitar tab and notes (pdf)
Listen
The Irish Rover instrumental guitar (mp3)
The Irish Rover (full accompaniment)
"The Irish Rover" for guitar with full accompaniment. Free download in pdf-file and audio.
The Irish Rover guitar accompaniment
The Irish Rover (only melody)
"The Irish Rover" tablature for guitar. This version doesn't include notes, se pdf versions above for notes.
Tips on how to learn this song
Notice that some of the bars are identical, for example bar 1, bar 5 and bar 13. It's always a good idea to find repetitious segments, which makes the task for memorizing seems less overwhelming. Notice also that the key is D Major and that there aren't any notes outside the scale.
The Irish Rover (Drop D)
"The Irish Rover" in Drop D tuning (DADGBE). Free download in pdf-file.
The Irish Rover (Drop D)
The Irish Rover (DADGAD)
"The Irish Rover" in DADGAD. Free download in pdf-file.
The Irish Rover (DADGAD)
Key, time, tuning and tempo
Information about "The Irish Rover" considering musical key, time signature, tuning and bpm.
Key
The (tab) version of The Irish Rover is played in the key of D.
Time signature
The song is played in 4/4 tempo (counted one, two, three, four for each measure).
Tuning
The song is normally played in standard tuning (EADGBE).
Tempo (BPM)
The tempo in beats per minute is 120 for the presented version.