Funnily enough I don't recall ever saying where I thought this particular song came from. I was commenting on one post where the poster said it was Irish because it referred to a soldier being in Ireland. However the first part of my post has disappeard (probably through my own incompetence) which was:

"It's clearly an Irish song if for no other reason than the lyric, "I'd like to find me brother, the one that's in the army. I don't know where he's stationed, in Cork or in Killarney.""


My second post took exception to the tone of Harlan's post when a look at many books of 'Irish' tunes/songs shows how many have been imported to the tradition, Dirty Old Town being a recent example.