Meself
No, untrue in the folk repertoire we have songs of fishing, songs about poaching, shanties, songs that involve transportation for poaching or stealing songs.

Amongst modern songs let us compare St John's RARE OULD TIMES with MacColl's DIRTY OLD TOWN, which is the most accurate...one shows sentiment, and one is sentimental. RARE OULD TIMES also has a blatant racist line or compare it to THE TOWN I LOVED SO WELL.

let us compare RARE OULD TIMES to FIELDS OF ATHENRY.

Lyrics

By a lonely prison wall
I heard a young girl calling
"Michael, they have taken you away
For you stole Trevelyan's corn
So the young might see the morn
Now a prison ship lies waiting in the bay"

Low lie the fields of Athenry
Where once we watched the small free birds fly
Our love was on the wing we had dreams and songs to sing
It's so lonely 'round the fields of Athenry

By a lonely prison wall
I heard a young man calling
"Nothing matters, Mary, when you're free
Against the famine and the crown
I rebelled, they cut me down
Now you must raise our child with dignity"

Low lie the fields of Athenry
Where once we watched the small free birds fly
Our love was on the wing we had dreams and songs to sing
It's so lonely 'round the fields of Athenry

By a lonely harbour wall
She watched the last star falling
As that prison ship sailed out against the sky
For she lived in hope and pray
For her love in Botany Bay
It's so lonely 'round the fields of Athenry

Low lie the fields of Athenry
Where once we watched the small free birds fly
Our love was on the wing we had dreams and songs to sing
It's so lonely 'round the fields of Athenry

this song has sentiment but is accurate and not sentimenbtal
as is
THE TOWN I LOVED SO WELL

In my memory I will always see
The town that I have loved so well
Where our school played ball by the gas-yard wall
And we laughed through the smoke and the smell
Going home in the rain, running up the dark lane
Past the jail and down behind the fountain
Those were happy days in so many, many ways
In the town I loved so well

In the early morning the shirt factory horn
Called women from Creggan, the Moor and the Bog
While the men on the dole played a mother's role,
Fed the children and then walked the dogs
And when times got tough there was just about enough
But they saw it through without complaining
For deep inside was a burning pride
In the town I loved so well

There was music there in the Derry air
Like a language that we all could understand
I remember the day that I earned my first pay
When I played in a small pick-up band
There I spent my youth and to tell you the truth
I was sad to leave it all behind me
For I learned about life and I'd found a wife
In the town I loved so well

But when I returned how my eyes have burned
To see how a town could be brought to its knees
By the armoured cars and the bombed out bars
And the gas that hangs on to every breeze
Now the army's installed by that old gasyard wall
And the damned barbed wire gets higher and higher
With their tanks and their guns, oh my God, what have they done
To the town I loved so well

Now the music's gone but they carry on
For their spirit's been bruised, never broken
They will not forget but their hearts are set
On tomorrow and peace once again
For what's done is done and what's won is won
And what's lost is lost and gone forever
I can only pray for a bright, brand new day
In the town I loved so well

FIELDS OF ATHENRY, DIRTY OLD TOWN and THE TOWN I LOVED SO WELL are better for a reason. they do not contain a racist line. they are accurate social comment. they have sentiment without being inaccurately sentimental. they do not look back at the past with rose tinted spectacles.