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 - "Lady Catherine Bligh's Reel." AKA and see "Down the Street," "Nimble Fingers (1)." Scottish (?), Reel (cut time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. Lady Caroline Bligh (1775-1812) whose name is more often given as 'Catherine') 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 [sic] Bligh, Lady Charles Stewart, portrait miniature by Anne Mee and James Health Milington, c. 1804, the year of her marriage. Note hear hands are draped over a harp.

The reel was composed by Scottish fiddler-composer Robert Macintosh (c. 1745-1807) as "Lady Catherine Bligh's Reel." "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, who included another version of the reel under the title "Down the Street."