"The Swallow's Tail Reel", in Gaelic "Eireaball na fáinleg", also known as "Swallowtail Reel", "The Pigeon's Tail", "The Swallowtail Coat", "Take Your Hand Away", "Village Reel" and other names is an Irish, New England and Shetland reel in A Dorian. The parts are played AB (O'Neill/1850) or AABB (Allan, Breathnach, Brody, Flaherty, Mallinson, Miller & Perron, O'Neill/Krassen, Sweet, Tolman, Tubridy). "The Swallow's Tail" is a widespread reel with many variants and titles and is current in several traditions. The settings vary from dorian to mixolydian modes, with some a mixture of both (O'Neill set the tune in mixolydian in his Music of Ireland (1903) and in minor in his Dance Music in Ireland (1907)). It is related to "Pride of the Ball". The oldest version of the tune with the "Swallow's Tail" title is in Book 2 of the c. 1883 music manuscript collection of County Leitrim piper and fiddler Stephen Grier (c. 1824-1894), although close versions were printed almost simultaneously in Ryan's Mammoth Collection (1883) under other titles. P.W. Joyce collected the tune in the mid-19th century in Kilkenny and printed it as an untitled reel in D Mixolydian in his Old Irish Folk Music and Songs (1909). The earliest sound recording of the tune may have been by O'Neill himself, who, in the first years of the 20th century, recorded on a cylinder machine a performance of the reel by Chicago fiddler John McFadden (who played a mixoydian version). It was printed in Breathnach's CRÉ III (1985), Brody's Fiddler’s Fakebook (1983), Flaherty's Trip to Sligo (1990), Giblin's Collection of Traditional Irish Dance Music (1928), Lyth's Bowing Styles in Irish Fiddle Playing, vol. 1 (1981), Mallinson's 100 Enduring (1995), McDermott's Allan's Irish Fiddler (c. 1920’s), Miller & Perron's New England Fiddlers Repertoire (1983), Mulvihill's 1st Collection (1986), O'Neill (Krassen) (1976), O'Neill's Music of Ireland: 1850 Melodies (1903), O'Neill's Dance Music of Ireland: 1001 Gems (1907), Sweet's Fifer’s Delight (1965/1981), Tolman's Nelson Music Collection (1969), Tubridy's Irish Traditional Music, vol. 1 (1999). It was recorded by John H. Kimmel (1918), Barry, Gorman, Ennis, and Heaney on Irish Music in London Pubs, Paddy Keenan on Paddy Keenan (1975), The Kerry Fiddle Trio on The Rushy Mountain (1994), Michael Coleman on The Legacy of Michael Coleman, Dave Swarbrick and Friends on The Ceilidh Album, K. Scanlon on Irish Dance Music (1995) and Davie Rogerson (et al) on Ranting and Reeling: Dance Music of the north of England (1998).