Annotation:Miss Gunning's Delight

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MISS GUNNING’S DELIGHT. Irish, Reel. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABBCC. O’Neill (1922) records: “Well-born and of surprising loveliness only equaled by their poverty, the famous Gunning sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, born in Roscommon and educated in Dublin, became Lady Coventry, and Dutchess of Hamilton respectively, in 1752, one year after their arrival in London. The marriages of ‘two Irish girls of no fortune who are declared the handsomest women alive’ were great public events. ‘May the Luck of the Gunnings attend you’ was a proverbial Irish blessing. The above setting of a tune composed in their honor, and printed in James Aird's Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs, vol. 1, 1782 is doubtless the original. A highly elaborate and difficult variant in four parts found in Sergt. James O'Neill's manuscripts, entitled ‘The Contradiction’ was printed in former O'Neill Collections. As an example of what may be developed from a simple composition by a skillful hand, both original and variant are herewith submitted for comparison.” See also “Miss Gunning's Fancy.”

Source for notated version: copied from James Aird’s Selections of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs (vol. 1, 1782) [O’Neill].

Printed sources: Aird (Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs, vol. 1), 1782; No. 131, p. 46. O’Neill (Waifs and Strays of Gaelic Melody), 1922; No. 214.

Recorded sources:

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