As I've always heard it used, a hooley is a less formal sort of an occasion than a ceili.

A ceili these days anyway implies an element of planning and even formality. You'd buy a ticket to go to a ceili.

A hooley is what happens or family get together and have a bit of singing or dancing or whatver. The English would probably say "knees-up" in the same context. So there's nothing unseemly going on in the kitchen.

And Bob Bolton, thanks for the midi offer, but I know the Brighton Camps/"Girl I left behind me" tune, and it's very much alive and kicking in England and in Ireland. (I ran into a Morris side that played it together with Beethoven's "Ode to Joy", and they work very well together.) And you're right, the DT has no fewer than 12 versions, and at least one has a midi of the tune.

But I reckon the "Courting in the Kitchen" one would probably work as well or better. These old songbooks, when they wrote the name of a tune next to a song, I reckon they often just wrote down one that they knew most people would be familiar with to which the words would fit.

I've done that myself with songs I've written, where I've a tune in mind that other people might not know. I don't think we should worry too much about singing a song to another tune from the one suggested, if we feel like it.