Barbara, thank you ever so much! That song has always puzzled me. BTW, I've tried to find corroboration for Paddy's intro, but the only book on Daniel O'Connell I have only takes his story up to 1829. It is Oliver MacDonagh's 'Hereditary Bondsman' (1986). In his preface he promises a second volume. Has anyone come across it?

What I thought might be relevant to the song was O'Connell's reputation as a womaniser and father of countless illegitimate children. But MacDonagh states categorically that no evidence of this can be found at all, and explains it as a normal part of a myth growing up around a great public figure. Well, I don't know. - Susanne