Patsy Watchorn was a fine singer in his younger days. I don't think it's fair to compare a 67 year old Patsy with a 30 year old Luke or Ronnie. Ronnie's voice wasn't what it used to be when he was 67 and poor old Luke's voice wasn't the best when he passed away at the age of 43. I thought Patsy looked rather humbled at the awards as I don't think he felt the award was really for him.

Patsy, like a lot of Irish singers, normally sings "gasworks wall" instead of "gasworks croft", which is a real bugbear of mine. I think "wall" became the norm in Ireland after Luke Kelly made a mistake on the Dubliners original recording of the song in 1968. Luke, who obviously knew the correct words, sang "croft" on the first verse, but on repeating the first verse at the end of the song he hesitates slightly and sings "factory wall" twice. I'd say most of the ballad groups on the Irish scene at the time would have got the words from this recording. A lot of them, maybe not knowing what a "croft" was, ended up singing "wall" instead, and that's what everybody would have heard in the pubs.

I have to say I was surprised to hear Patsy sing "cross" at the folk awards as I've never heard him sing that before. Maybe somebody "in the know" tried to point out the correct words but Patsy misheard them. You know what the English are like with their funny accents.