This thread runs along familiar lines, when anyone dies there good and bad points are raked over. Lomax may have been no paragon of racial tolerance, but his brilliant research and rescue of folk songs has to be acknowledged.

The Irish composer Thomas Moore was accused of pilfering old Irish melodies for his numerous songs, what harm, the melodies might have been lost forever.

And so it goes with Alan Lomax, a wee word in the ear of Tommy Makem would throw some more light on Lomax, as he spent some time listening to Tommy`s mother Sarah and was fascinated by the good womans repetoire of folk songs. Ard Mhacha.