Lilliburlero. Tune of unknown origin, first appeared in print in 1686 in a book of ‘lessons’ for the recorder or fl., where it is styled ‘Quickstep’. In the following year it achieved popularity set to satirical verses (with the mock Irish word ‘Lilliburlero’ as a refrain) referring to the appointment to the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland of General Talbot, newly-created Earl of Tyrconnel, whose name is mentioned several times. It has remained a song of the Orange party to the present day, set to different words as ‘Protestant Boys’. In Purcell's Musick's Handmaid, it appears under the title ‘A New Irish Tune’ as a hpd. piece: Purcell also used it as a ground bass in mus. for the play The Gordian Knot unty'd (1691).

‘Lillibullero’, which ‘sang a prince out of three kingdoms’, was a doggerel ballad, attributed to Lord Wharton, with a tune by Purcell. It purported to be the native Irish welcoming James II's lord-lieutenant Tyrconnel in 1687 to ‘cut the Englishmen's throats’. The refrain ‘Lillibullero’ is probably a nonsense-jingle. According to Burnet, this ‘foolish ballad’ swept Britain ‘the whole army and at last the people, both in the city and country, singing it perpetually’.

J. A. Cannon

Lilliburlero an anti-Jacobite song ridiculing the Irish, popular at the end of the 17th century especially among soldiers and supporters of William III during the Revolution of 1688; the refrain of the song is ‘Lilli burlero bullen a la’.