"Robin Adair" is a traditional Irish (sometimes identified as Scottish) song with lyrics written by Lady Caroline Keppel. It was popular in the 18th century. It has a

Roud Folk Song Index The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of around 250,000 references to nearly 25,000 songs collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world. It is compiled by Steve Roud. Roud's Index is a combination of the Broadsid ...

number of 8918. The song was mentioned by

Jane Austen Jane Austen ( ; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for #List of works, her six novels, which implicitly interpret, critique, and comment on the English landed gentry at the end of the 18th century ...

in her 1815 novel '' Emma''; the character Jane Fairfax played it on the piano. The song is also mentioned in Chapter IX of MacKinlay Kantor's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "Andersonville" (1955).

Background

Robert "Robin" Adair was a real person: a surgeon-colonel in the British army, who declined a

baronetcy A baronet ( or ; abbreviated Bart or Bt) or the female equivalent, a baronetess (, , or ; abbreviation Btss), is the holder of a baronetcy, a hereditary title awarded by the British Crown. The title of baronet is mentioned as early as the 14th ...

, he was born in

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

around 1714 and died in 1790. Lady Caroline Keppel (c. 1734–1769), the elder of the two daughters of Willem Anne van Keppel, 2nd Earl of Albemarle, married Adair, despite the fact that her family disapproved of the match because of his lower status. Lady Caroline wrote the song bearing her husband's name during the 1750s as a rebuke to her family for what she perceived as their

snobbery ''Snob'' is a pejorative term for a person who feels superior due to their social class, education level, or social status in general;De Botton, A. (2004), ''Status Anxiety''. London: Hamish Hamilton it is sometimes used especially when they pr ...

regarding her handsome and accomplished lover. Their son, also christened Robert Adair, became an MP and went on to become a distinguished British

diplomat A diplomat (from ; romanization, romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state (polity), state, International organization, intergovernmental, or Non-governmental organization, nongovernmental institution to conduct diplomacy with one ...

, frequently employed on the most important

diplomatic mission A diplomatic mission or foreign mission is a group of people from a state or organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving or host state. In practice, the phrase usually denotes ...

s. The tune to which Lady Caroline's verse was set may have been written by

Charles Coffey Charles Coffey (late 17th century – 13 May 1745) was an Irish playwright, opera librettist and arranger of music from County Westmeath. Following the initial failure of his ballad opera ''The Beggar’s Wedding'' (Dublin, Smock Alley Theatre, ...

Eileen Aroon Eileen ( or ) is an Irish feminine given name anglicised from Eibhlín, an Irish form of the Norman French name Aveline, which is derived from the Germanic ''Avi'', possibly meaning ''desire'' in combination with the diminutive suffix ''el'' a ...

," a work by him, features the same melody).

Lyrics

These lyrics were printed in a

chapbook A chapbook is a type of small printed booklet that was a popular medium for street literature throughout early modern Europe. Chapbooks were usually produced cheaply, illustrated with crude woodcuts and printed on a single sheet folded into 8, 1 ...

of 1823: A further three verses may comprise a later addition.

Uses in classical music

Matthew Dubourg Matthew Dubourg (1703 – 3 July 1767) was an English violinist, conductor, and composer who spent most of his life in Ireland. Among other achievements, Dubourg led the orchestra at the premiere of Georg Friedrich Handel's great oratorio ''Me ...

wrote a set of variations on the tune (under the name "Eileen Aroon")

Maria Malibran Maria Felicia Malibran (; 24 March 1808 – 23 September 1836) was a Spanish singer who commonly sang both contralto and soprano parts, and was one of the best-known opera singers of the 19th century. Malibran was known for her stormy personality ...

's romance "L'Ecossais" quotes the tune. Francois Boieldieu quotes the tune in the aria "Vive a jamais notre nouveau seigneur" of his opera

La dame blanche ''La dame blanche'' (, ''The White Lady'') is an opéra comique in three acts by the French composer François-Adrien Boieldieu. The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe and is based on episodes from no fewer than five works of the Scottish wri ...

William Vincent Wallace William Vincent Wallace (11 March 1812 – 12 October 1865) was an Irish composer and pianist. In his day, he was famous on three continents as a double virtuoso on violin and piano. Nowadays, he is mainly remembered as an opera composer of n ...

wrote an impromptu based on the tune

External links

* * * * ''Robin Adair'', London: G. Walker, 804-1814on

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

Interpretations

* performed by Samantha Carrasco, piano

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Robin Adair Traditional ballads Irish folk songs