This reel was the first tune ever written by Shetland fiddler Samuel Ian Rothmar Burns, probably around 1960. Spootiskerry is the name of a farm in the author's family. In his tunebook, also called Spootiskerry, he says "Spootiskerry [is] the croft belonging to my late grand aunts, Bella and Joan Nicolson, situated between the village of Sullom, and the new town of Brae." A spoot is a razor clam, one of the edible "ebb meats" taken from the shore at low tide, named because it "spoots" (or spouts) when you disturb it. A skerry is a group of rocks which are only sometimes visible at low tide.
This tune was first printed in 1903 in America, in policeman and Irish traditional music collector Francis O'Neill's Music of Ireland, which contained 1850 melodies.
This tune is Irish in style but may have originated in the US before its spread through much of the traditional music world. It is also known as a hornpipe named Katherine Brennan's Favorite, which came from Irish-American fiddler Andy McGann, who learned it from his fiddle teacher Katherine Brennan.