Gee, I thought I had something with the O'Neill date. I guess the 1903 date quoted for the American edition is close to its first printing. Oh, well, should be an interesting book with all those tunes. I should have guessed; there is nothing in Sam Henry's "Songs..."

The British were in Ceylon for a long time. I agree that the name means little with regard to the song. Bored British soldiers stationed there in peace time would complain about duty in 'Siloam' 'Siloon,' long after the rebellion of 1817 and that could well show up in songs of later date (Seems to me that, discussed recently, there is another song entirely in which that name shows up- ??- can't remember).

The Bodleian copies of "Johnny I hardly knew ye" are poorly dated (one is est. 1850-1899, hardly helpful) and are Manchester and London broadsides (even though they sound Irish). There seem to be no copies at American Memory.

Someone always wants to trace songs to black origins, usually with no evidence. The name applied by the press to the Dvorak Symphony, "New World," was a joke among Czech musicians; the section of Prag with wine, women and song at the time was called the "New World." No remotely similar tunes of prior date have been found.