I have looked through my collections of ballads sung in New England, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick that are probably the same collections the Digitrad is using to no avail. At the risk of creating disagreement, I believe the propensity of the Irish for prose and balladry arises from different social strata than those who worked building the railroads and canals. The author of the article on the Irish in Lewiston, Maine admits her ancestor arrived in Lewiston as a contractor, not an unskilled laborer. Many of the Irish ballad makers were schoolmasters trained in French seminaries. They would have been looking for different types of work in America. However, I am quite interested in this subject and hope to check my local public and historical libraries in hopes of proving myself wrong.

Brían