Annotation:Miss Gunning's Delight
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 tune was published in London by the three main London publishing concerns (John Johnson, David Rutherford, and the Thompsons) in the early-mid 1750's. A setting of the tune composed in their honor, printed in James Aird's Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs, vol. 1 (1782) is a copy of the original. O'Neill continues: "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.”
"Miss Gunnings" was also entered in the mid-19th century music manuscript of William Winter (1774-1861), a shoemaker and violin player who lived in West Bagborough in Somerset, southwest England.
