G'day again

Soddy: I have not heard the tune Mountains of Mourne used for Billy of Tea, but I have no doubt the words fit. As I said above, the collected tune was Bonny Dundee, a sprightly Scots tune and the tune commonly used today is a rather flattened-out version of the "A" part of the same tune.

I think I would find Mountains of Mourne a bit on the slow and dreary side by comparison, but chacun a sa gout! I am not sure that the Mountains of Mourne was around when Billy of Tea was "composed". It was published as an 'anon,' ballad in 1897, but would have been in oral circulation for many years before. I presume that the Mountains of Mourne comes from the late 1880s/'90s "music hall Irish" period. Bonny Dundee commemorates a battle between the Scots and the English, some centuries earlier, and was a popular tune here, in the latter part of the 18th century, as several song use the tune.

Regards,

Bob Bolton Regards,

Bob Bolton