So much of value was lost because the early, "antiquarian" collectors were in the main interested only in texts and so ignored the tunes to which they were sung; and because the collectors of the later 19th and early 20th centuries were all-out for the melodies and frequently neglected to note more than a snatch of the words. Of course, this was often inadvertent (a tune may remain in the memory when you get home, but without a notebook, what is to become of the song it went with?) but this has left us rather in the dark a lot of the time, particularly as, even when material was published, it so often appeared with texts extensively (or entirely) re-written, and lacking vital information which the collectors or editors possessed, but failed to mention. Some of this can be recovered from such MS collections as survive and are accessible, but much is lost.

That general observation applies equally to Britain and to Ireland, I think. Further comment was made on the various pen-names used by Hughes and his friends in an earlier discussion, Lagan Love. See particularly John Moulden's remarks.