Hello again Jim

I know that one of your tradition bearers sold his songs direct to ballad makers, but I don't think it is accurate to assert that the whole trade in Ireland went like that. I have read that Cork was a centre for pirate broadsheet song making to sell to the colonies at a time when Irish copyright laws were not like English ones.

Also, I'm not sure that the point stands in relation to Laycock who made songs and sold them to printers to make money because he needed the money during the cotton famine, more or less the same as your tradition bearer except that your tradition bearer may have had to sing it rather than writing it down.

I think Laycock does 'romanticise'; it is one of the ways he tries to create sympathy, and it seems to me to be in line with Victorian ideas of the 'deserving poor'. Note the 'modesty meek' description. Of course this is just my view.