Sorry, Jim, I misinterpreted you then - The passage I had in mind was -

During the course of our collecting we have encountered a somewhat strange phenomenon. On several occasions we have recorded songs, here in Clare and also from Travellers, which must have been composed during the lifetimes of the singers. On two of these (both composed communally), the singers were present when the songs were made. Yet each time we have drawn a blank on finding the composers. It just didn't seem important enough to be remembered.

I took it to mean that the as the songs were composed during the life of the singer, the composer could, theoreticaly, still be alive.

Anyway - not to worry. I am not going to get hung up on that point because what I was saying, was that when the composer is not known, we cannot say if they made any money out of the song or not. Can we?

Cheers

Dave