Annotation:Darby Kelly
X:1 T:Darby Kelly M:6/8 L:1/8 R:Jig S:John Rook music manuscript (Wigton, Cumbria,1840) K:G D|G2B B2E|G2B B2E|G2B B2d|c2A A2D| G2B B2G|E2c c2E|DED D2c|A2G G2:| B|A2D D2B|A2D D2B|A2d c2e|d2D D2B| c2B A2G|c2B A2G|E2G F2A|A2G G2d| Bcd dBg|e3 d2c|Bcd dcB|cBc ABc| Bcd dBg|e3 d2c|Bcd dcB|B2A A2||
DARBY KELLY. English, Air (6/8 time) or March. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. The melody appears in the music manuscript collection of English musician John Rook (Wigton, Cumbria, 1840). The first strain is shared with the Irish "Kilfenora Slide (The)." The tune was also entered into Book 4 (p. 64) of the large mid-19th century music manuscript collection of County Cork cleric and uilleann piper wikipedia:James_Goodman_(musicologist). "Darby Kelly" was a Napoleonic-era song written by Thomas Dibdin and set to music by John Whitaker, and performed at the Theatres Royal and other venues. The first stanza, from The Pocket Melodist; or, Dramatic Muse, 3rd collection (London: J. Duncombe, 1816, page 65) goes:
My Grandsire beat a drum so neat,
His name was Darby Kelly, O,
No lad so true at rat-tat-too,
At roll-call or reveille, O.
When Marlbro's name—first rais'd his fame,
My Grandy beat the point of war;
At Blenheim he—at Ramillie,
Made ears to tingle far and near.
For with his wrist, he'd such a twist,
The girls would leer, you don't know how;
They laugh'd and cried, and sigh'd and died,
To hear him beat the row-dow-dow,
With a row-dow-dow,
To hear him beat his row-dow-dow.
They laugh'd and cried, and sigh'd and died,
To hear him beat the row-dow-dow.
The air was entered (as "Darby Kelly O") in the mid-19th century music manuscript of William Winter, a shoemaker and violin player who lived in West Bagborough in Somerset, southwest England.
