Re Galvin's comments quoted above.

There is a big difference between committing an act of sedition that may include music, and that music in and of itself being illegal; the context and the intent are the significant factors, I would think, in any prosecution for sedition. It may be significant that, while Galvin makes broad, generalised claims, he avoids specifics. Surely if he knew a piece of music or song to have been proscribed by law at some point, he would have given details? I suspect that folklore rather than history may just perhaps have provided his 'living memory', though of course specific examples, if such exist, would be welcome.

'McCaffery' isn't the only song about which such rumours have circulated. As chance would have it, I picked up some old copies of English Dance and Song the other day. In the edition for Autumn 1972, Sam Richards was quoted as saying that 'a Devon singer' who sang him a version of 'The Young Sailor Cut Down in his Prime' told him not to say where he had heard it, 'in case the police traced him'.