Two apologies in a row - I'm getting punch drunk.

I should have read your version more carefully - your "I've known life hard ..." verse has a number of different words, but I should have noticed that it was the same as the original "O, I've ken't life hard .. "

I've never seen the two verses that MacColl reported had been added, and he certainly never sang them. I know no more than his report:

"Within six months of The Travelling People being broadcast, a collector recorded one of its songs from a group of Irish tinkers. The song had already been subject to the folk process. The tune had been Irished and two extra verses added. It was, the singer said, the work of a Donegal man, a tinker who had also written the well-known song The Shores of Erin."

Phil