Mikeen (Small Michael) McCarthy, Kerry Traveller, 1977

J C:       What would you say was the oldest song that went on to a ballad that you know?

M Mc:   Oh, the Blind Beggar, I'd say, I'd say that was the oldest because at that time..... I'd meet an old man at that time of sixty five, seventy years we'll say and he'd be contradicting me about the song.    Actually that's how I put it right because the old timers was telling me. The printer might make a mistake and put the second verse where the third one should be or something like that, you know,    But you'd meet the old timers then inside in the pub and they'd contradict me, I'd have to rewrite it out there inside in the bar again and I'd have to go on again.
But I remember one day I was in Listowel Fair and I was selling ballads anyway.    So I goes into a pub, I was fifteen years of age then.   
Actually, I never wanted to pack it up, it was ashamed of the ladies I got, you know.   
But there was an American inside anyway, he wasn't back to Ireland I'd say for thirty years or something, he was saying.   
So I sang that song now, The Blind Beggar, and he asked me to sing it again, and every time I sang it he stuck a pound note into my top pocket.
He said, "will you sing again?"
So I did, yeah. The pub was full all round like, what we call a nook (te) now that time, a small bar, a private little bar off from the rest of the pub.   
"And, will you sing it again"?   
"I will, delighted" again, of course, another pound into my top pocket every time anyway.    And the crowd was around of course and they were all throwing in two bobs apiece and a shilling apiece and I'd this pocket packed with silver money as well.   
So he asked me, "will you sing it for the last time".   
Says I, "I'll keep singing it till morning if you want". (laughter )   
I'd six single pound notes in it when I came outside of the pub. I think I sold the rest of the ballads for half nothing to get away to the pictures.