“Kitty of Coleraine”

Description

"As beautiful Kitty one morning was tripping" she sees the singer, stumbles, breaks her pitcher and spills its milk. He comforts her. "She vowed for such pleasure she'd break it again." Soon after not an unbroken pitcher could be found in Coleraine

Notes

Broadside Bodleian Harding B 10(8) imprint: "Publish'd Apr. 4, 1809, by Laurie & Whittle, 53, Fleet Street, London. Sung with unbounded applause by John Johnstone, Esq of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, amongst his convivial friends in Ireland." - BS

The editors of _Granger's Index to Poetry_ list this as "wr[ongly] at[tributed] to Charles Dawson Shanley." Hoagland, at least, follows this incorrect attribution (giving Shanley's dates as 1811-1875, which obviously demonstrates why he couldn't have written a song published in 1809), though she admits some doubts. - RBW

Cross references

Broadsides

  • Bodleian, Harding B 10(8), "Kitty of Colerain", Laurie & Whittle (London), 1809; also Firth b.25(262), 2806 c.15(262), 2806 c.17(209), Harding B 28(149), "Kitty of Colerain"; 2806 b.11(176), Firth c.26(216), Harding B 25(1033), Harding B 12(49), "Kitty of Coleraine"; Harding B 28(265), "Kitty of Colerein"

References

  1. O'Conor, p. 44, "Kitty of Coleraine" (1 text)
  2. Hayward-Ulster, p. 67, "Kitty of Coleraine" (1 text)
  3. cf. Gardner/Chickering, p. 480, "Kitty of Coleraine" (source notes only)
  4. ADDITIONAL: Kathleen Hoagland, editor, One Thousand Years of Irish Poetry (New York, 1947), p. 467, "Kitty of Coleraine" (1 text)
  5. Roud #6534
  6. BI, OCon044

About

Author: unknown
Earliest date: 1809 (broadside, Bodleian Harding B 10(8))
Keywords: sex humorous food
Found in: Ireland