John "Jacko" Reilly
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John Reilly (Born c1926 Died 1969) was a settled traveller and traditional singer, who lived in Boyle, County Roscommon, and may have hailed from Carrick-on-Shannon in Co Leitrim.
He learned much of his repertoire from his parents. He proved to be a remarkable source of rare ballads, which were collected from him and recorded by Tom Munnelly.
In the case of the song "The Well Below The Valley" it seemed to have passed out of the oral tradition entirely in Britain & Ireland (Although Variations on the theme and subject were collected as part of the Child Ballads, The Maid and the Palmer and The Cruel Mother among them) possibly due to its gruesome subject matter and a reluctance for many singers to sing it.
It was from John Reilly that Christy Moore learned The Well Below the Valley, The Raggle Taggle Gypsy, Lord Baker and As I Roved out.
Christy Moore on John Reilly:
"He was a generous and gentle man," wrote Moore in his book One Voice, "totally bemused and very tickled when his singing gained the attention of the folklorists.
"It is one of the basic source songs, the discovery of John singing this was the folklorist's equivalent of the discovery of the Rubik"
