Sorry Ard, I'm with McG on this one, Kavanagh's lyric is pretty much independent of the original: though inspired by it, it's "better"; or at least more meaningful for more modern times. It has to be kept in mind though, that Walsh's version is a translation and has probably been "prettified". Because it rhymes (and so sweetly and neatly) in another language, it's artificial. I'd love to see, and understand, the original lyric in Irish. Ard, I do have a (very) good tenor, Michael O'Duffy, singing it, from 1948, too late for Kavanagh. I wonder where Kavanagh learned it? Any info on older recordings?

As Tom Munnelly said yonks ago on Mudcat, Kavanagh himself sang the song to the old air, the film is in RTE archives. A short clip of it was shown on the Luke Kelly tribute on RTE in '99, of which I have a copy. (Paddy was a god-awful singer, worse than me!).