Source: various musicians – private recording.

Attributed to John McGrath, Rossport, Erris (1900-1955) although this has been challenged¹. Apparently the tunes more famous title came about during a train trip taken by Michael Coleman and others to play at a wedding in Providence, Rhode Island.² The tunes first appearance in publication is in a book by Jerry O’Brien³ as The Rossport Reel and to whom McGrath contributed several tunes. That version has a notable difference than the one generally played today in bars 4-5 where the characteristic long E appears a half bar earlier:

1. https://tunearch.org/wiki/Annotation:Providence_Reel
2. Joe Byrne, Fidiléirí – Mayo Fiddlers. Dreoilín Community Arts, Achadh Mór, 1995, p.50
3. Irish Folk Dance Music: for Violin, Flute, Guitar, Banjo and Accordion / Compiled and Arranged by Jerry O’Brien. Roxbury, Massachusetts: E. O’Byrne DeWitt’s Sons, 1952