This is a bit of a diversion but since Danny Boy and POW's appear together way up in this thread and fact and fiction are part of the discussion here it is. I once had a resident singing job where I went from table to table and did requests. People always had bits and pieces of information for me about the songs I sang and amazing things I was told too! A lady assured me that Danny Boy was actually about an incident in WW2! "Not at all an old song from the turn of the century then?" says I straight-faced. "No" says she "It's about a German soldier talking to an English soldier in the trenches. One of them is called Danny" So there you go.