Thanks for this great thread, Everyone, now going almost twenty years, I've learned so much from it. Am prepping this song to sing at some upcoming St. Pat's gigs and wanted to dig into it to learn more about it. I've been singing it a long time but knew little about it. Interesting to learn that Tim Lyons has been a major source of it for many, as he was for me directly when I learned it from him at Pinewoods in 2001.
    Thanks so much to GUEST for the recent post of the fantastic recording of Shaun O'Nolan singing it on a 78. Wow. No definitive proof that he wrote it but seems very likely.
    Here's a recording of Robbie MacMahon singing it in 1989. I post as a tribute to him since he started Robbie's First Friday trad singing session in Spancilhill, Co. Clare, which I got acquainted with on Zoom during Covid. They still occasionally host a Zoom sesh. https://youtu.be/P5gQ88CMmwg?si=2GRWLDbRiD3Yoraz