btw Eric I knew Sean well in the old days - even before he could play guitar - when he was doing gigs unaccompanied, and, you're dead right he made no secret of the song being Geordie . He ( and Luke Kelly ,Christy Moore etc before him ) loved the songs which were flying round the British folk scene and it didn't matter from where the songs came from - but they , and many other Irish performers all knew who, wrote what, and in general they remain blameless, because they properly attributed them to their writers and composers when performing the same.