First published on The Journal of Music in Ireland on 27 October 2026.

The night before Dónal Lunny passed away, I was sitting at the piano, thinking about his music, and picking out the melody for ‘Tribute to Peadar O’Donnell’. Lunny composed the air and recorded it with Moving Hearts in 1985, and its wandering, cumulative power has always made me curious. But as I worked through it and added chords, I realised that much of the air stays within the bounds of the standard D, G and A major chords, with just a touch of B minor and C. So many melodies and songs have been written with these chords that I was left with one question: how did he find this melody in there?