Savourneen Deelish

A traditional Irish slow air (a mhúirnín dílis, “my faithful darling”) in print by the first decade of the nineteenth century in Smollet Holden’s Dublin collection, and carried through the century by Forde, Clinton, and others. The air did heavy lifting as a vehicle for later texts: it’s the tune of “The Exile of Erin,” and in Australia John McGarvie’s convict-era “The Plains of Emu” (1829) was set to it. The melody’s plaintive character made it a standard of the sentimental-Irish repertoire on both sides of the Atlantic.