Hello folks,

Thank you, Alice, for the plug, link and welcome! And thanks to all for your comments and discussion here.

Roy Williamson is not credited on the site because no one is--yet. Our fellow singer/webmistress has just finished a year of grad school; I don't know how she managed to churn out as much HTML as she did between gigs and final exams! Tune, verse and translation information are in the CD booklet, certainly, and will be up on the site soon.

As to carbon-dating verse--academically, I was reared in the linguistic camp and find it only natural to follow 11-17th c. recorded verse back to significantly earlier renditions, all the more confidently for those in the ilk of "Binn Sin, a Luin Doire an Chairn" which have attestations in both Irish and Scottish MSS (see Royal Irish Academy MS 23 D 38.) Time spent with the elderly singers (Irish or otherwise) accustoms one to using "thousands" without a second thought; I do believe "thousands," (rather than "hundreds," for example) comes far closer to accurately representing the span of traditional song.

This said I must hasten--yea, leap--to add that I firmly respect the right of all to analyze the evidence as they see fit, and am not in the least offended by opinions contrary to my own. It is a real joy to find a group of people engaging in serious discussion of the matter. My involvement in traditional song revolves now around a busy schedule of singing and teaching, but I hope to find time to read and post with some frequency.

Ádh mór oraibh, best wishes to all,

Síle Shigley (P.S. Our dialect of Irish is fairly straightforward Gaoth Dobhair i.e. "-ort" for "-ocht," "-áighe" for "-áire" and a few other localisms...other than that, if there's something that sounds off, we welcome all observations and thank you in advance.)