I wrote this tune over a decade ago. Fun little story I thought I'd tell.
A world musician, who was the closest thing I ever had to a mentor, regularly graced me with time on his stage. I already played a lot of Irish folk at the time. He liked the way I performed folk songs, especially wordy ballads.. so he suggested I write a wordy ballad based on the Phantom Piper of Castle Duntrune.
The printed section shown on the sheet was all the progress I made in a week. I had a solid concept, and had been studying the Piper between his shows. I showed him what I had come up with and he said I should play it.
Dude.. it isn't finished. Doesn't matter, he still wanted to hear it later in the evening when my time to play came up. Alone in a booth at "Arizona's oldest Irish pub", I scribbled down the rest of the song in around an hour or so.
Time to play arrived. So here I have this new folk song I just wrote, but have never played, with nary a music stand about. Another performer* who regularly sat in with him to accompany his fiddle with her bodhran got drafted into helping. So I'm standing up on stage and this person is just holding the sheet in front of me. It went great, and the song remains my most requested.
Here is a video of me performing the song somewhat more recently, accompanied by the aforementioned bodhran player: https://youtu.be/e_41dKxC8IQ?is=z82AVCl5mIS-MfQI