Great info, Martin and Lewis.   One of the things I like about the song is it seems 'in the moment' anticipating the French landing, rather than writing about it after the fact as history.

Effsee, my intent is to know the song roughly as it might have been sung in '98, (which means I probably need an Irish lyric translation too!)

I know Clancy would be the more respected and politically correct source to us today, but when one sees a different melody in print in two sources, one must suspect that might be the traditional melody most used.

Sometimes singers choose to perform a more beautiful melody than the 'standard' one, and I was curious whether Liam and the orchestra hadn't just done that. From the above posts about tune 1 being passed down orally, it sounds like I can stick with tune 1.