I'm surprised no one has taken up Dick's challenge to draw some connection between this timeless song and the Irish. So here goes.

Since the 1840's, New Orleans has had a strong Irish connection. The Irish were the preferred form of labor for the local "navigation" canals. Slave holders were reluctant to jeapordize their valuable human capital in the yellow fever-infested swamp that was New Orleans outside the levee. If an Irishman died you just stop feeding him.

Those that survived canal digging formed a community that to this day is called the Irish Channel. It even has its equisitely ornate church, St Alphonsus, preserved as an Irish cultural center.

The cultural and physical chasm between, say the Ozarks and the isolated seaport of New Orleans is wide and deep. There doesn't seem to be much of a family balad singing tradition in New Orleans proper. For the past few years I've been dealing with the apparent value system that holds it impolite to sing on chorus or to sing at all. (Boy do I hope to be proven wrong on this one!) The Irish with their tradition of family and community music are thus prime candidates for coughing up this balad - themes and all.

Don't discount the nautical connection. Stan Huggil considers New Orleans to be one of a few American "Sailor Towns" (Boston isn't on the list). New Orleans' sailor town was the Vieux Carre or French Quarter for most of the 19th and into the 20th century. The bucko sailor tradition had to have contained its full measure of Irish matelos. With the exception of the basic theme of Bourbon Street, this seamier (and more musical) side of the French Quarter has been pretty well surpressed in favor of the more genteel (and less balad-full) creole image.

Finally, I'll leave for all to speculate about the likely source of a song that praises the beauty and honor of a "creole girl". This is not your typical deep south or even rural American concept in the 19th century but it is certainly a common idea in sea shanties.

Any takers? Ship*scat