Annotation:Lady Caroline Bligh's Reel

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X:1 T:Lady Catherine Bligh’s Reel C:Robert Mackintosh M:C L:1/8 R:Reel B:Robert Mackintosh – “A Fourth Collection of New Strathspey Reels, B:also some Famous old Reels” (c. 1804, p. 35) N:Dedicated to the Dutchess [sic] of Manchester N:Robert “Red Rob” Mackintosh (c. 1745-1808) was a Scottish violinist and N:composer active in Edinburgh at the end of the 18th century. Originally from N:Tullymet, near Pitlochry, Perthshire. He moved to London in the last decade N:of his life. Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:Bb f|(d/c/B/A/) BF DB,FD|ECed cGcA|(BABF) GBeg|fedc dBB|| f|fbab fbdB|ecdB (Acce)|dbdf egce|dfAc dBBf| dbab fbdB|ecfB (AccA)|BFDF GBEG|AcFe dBB||

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LADY CAROLINE BLIGH'S REEL. AKA and see "Nimble Fingers (1)." Scottish (?), Reel (cut time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. Lady Caroline Bligh was the first daughter of the 3rd Earl of Darnley, who married Charles William Vane Stewart [1] (1778-1856), Marquis of Londonderry, in 1804. He was an Irish soldier in the British army and a politician. She died in 1812 of fever following a minor operation, while her husband was on active service in the Peninsula Campaign in the wars with Napoleon.

Lady Catherine Bligh, Lady Charles Stewart, portrait miniature by Anne Mee and James Health Milington, c. 1804, the year of her marriage. Not hear hands are draped over a harp.

"Nimble Fingers (1), printed in Ryan's Mammoth Collection (1883), is nearly identical, save for a change of key. Both tunes are cognate versions of "Miss Thornton’s Reel."

The tune appears in the large mid-19th century music manuscript collection of County Cork cleric and uilleann piper Canon biography:James Goodman.