Annotation:On the Lake of Killarney
X:1 T:On the Lake of Killarney M:6/8 L:1/8 R:Air N:The third line of the music is an instrumental bridge. The N:remainder is the vocal line. N:ABACA structure B:The Vocal Magazine, vol. 3 (Edinburgh, 1799, Song XII, pp. 29-31) Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:G OG/A/|BGG AGG|Bde dBg|eAA AA/B/c/d/|ecA A2G/A/| BGG AGG|dBg g2 f/e/|{e}dc/B/ A/G/ dBG|EDG G3| d/e/d/B/g d/e/d/B/g|eAA A>Bc/A/|d/e/d/B/g d/e/d/B/g|EDG G2O|| Bc|dBG dBG|cee e>fg|dBG dBG|cAA A2B/c/| dBG dBG|deg g2 f/e/|dBG dBG|AA/B/c/A/ e2 d/c/!D.S.!:|| B,/C/|D=FF EGG|^FD/E/F/D/ G2 B,/C/|D=FF EGG|^FD/E/F/D/ G2 G/A/| BGD BGd|BGG cd/c/B/A/|BGD BGd|BGG cd/c/!D.S.!:||
ON THE LAKE OF KILLARNEY. Irish, Air (6/4 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). ABCA. The song "On the Lake of Killarney" is by musical composer and conductor at Vauxhall Gardens, wikipedia:James Hook (1746-1827), for his operatic farce Double Disguise (1781) performed at the Theatre-Royal in Drury Lane. The libretto was written by Elizabeth Madden, who became Hook's wife. The music for the song may or may not have originated with Hook, as it was common at the time for composers occasionally to adapt and arrange existing music for their operatic works.
The song was printed in The Vocal Magazine, vol. III (Edinburgh, 1799, Song XII, p. 29), The Baltimore Musical Miscallany (1805), The Irish Musical Repository (1810) and similar songsters. The lyrics begin:
Chorus:
On the lake of Killarney I first saw the lad
Who with song and bagpipe could make my hear glad,
On the lake of Killarney I first saw the lad,
Who with song and with bagpipe could make my heart glad.
Verse:
And his hair was so red and his eyes were so bright,
Oh they shone like the stars in a cold frosty night.
So tall and so strait, my dear Paddy was seen,
Oh he look'd like the fairies that dance on the green,
Chorus
All the girls of Killarney wore green willow tree,
When first my dear Patrick sung love tales to me,
Oh he sung and he danc'd and he won my fond heart,
And to save his dear life with my own I would part.
Chorus:
The tune was also entered into the music copybook of Ensign Thomas Molyneaux, "6th Regnt", Shelburne, Nova Scotia, dated 1788.
