Re Synge:

Thanks for that, Fiona -- the only Synge I know is the Playboy, so I hadn't come on this:

    MARY -- (suddenly shouting behind, tipsily) -- Larry was a fine lad, I'm saying; Larry was a fine lad, Sarah Casey --
    MICHAEL. Whist, now, the two of you. There's my mother coming, and she'd have us destroyed if she heard the like of that talk the time she's been drinking her fill.
    MARY -- (comes in singing) --
    And when we asked him what way he'd die,
       And he hanging unrepented,
    "Begob," says Larry, "that's all in my eye,
       By the clergy first invented."
    SARAH. Give me the jug now, or you'll have it spilt in the ditch.

ftp://ftp.compsci.lyon.edu/pub/gutenberg/etext98/tnkwd10.txt

Shows how the song persisted.

I +thought+ I first encountered it in Robert Graves' +English and Scottish Ballads+, but I can't find it there. I'm still pretty sure Graves deals with it somewhere -- anyone help?

Robin