The song in the DT The Old Cow has been puzzling me for some time.

After a request, made a few weeks before his death earlier this year, by the traditional singer Charlie McGonigle (James Eoghain) of Cloontagh, Clonmany in the Inishowen peninsula of Donegal, for a song he called "The Ould Cow of Bellanlough" - a song his brother Pat had also been seeking. I came across it (while looking for something else, of course)as "The Old Cow of Kinlough" recorded by Séamus Ennis from Thomas Moran of Mohill Co Leitrim, for the BBC in 1953. A search using some of the words in that song led to the version attributed to the Kenny Family, Newfoundland which in the DT. These I passed on to Charlie and Pat.

However, the song's passage to Newfoundland, in better shape than any version from Ireland, irritated me. So, once again, serendipity: I find that the song was written by James O'Kane (1832-1913), a subsistence farmer of Swatragh, Co Derry. He was known locally as "The Miller Kane" and more widely as "The Bard of Carntogher" (a hill in the area). He called it "The Killyleagh Cow" after the town of the name in Co Tyrone (there is another, better known, in Co Down. His poems were collected and published, in 1938, by Michael Hurl, a London based journalist (and the author of "Sweet Omagh Town")who came from the Swatragh area. Another collection, containing the poems in the 1938 volume, augmented by versions in the Sam Henry collection (including unpublished papers), was published, edited by Cíarán Ó Maoláin as "The Bard of Carntogher: the poems of James O'Kane" by the Broc Press of Plymouth, in 1982; with my help.

If there is a barrage of requests I will consider posting the words of the original song. It's not as singable as some of its derivatives.