i am a canadian folksinger who grew up in the '50's and '60's and have just found and learned "Dirty Old Town" ... my sister and brother in law were visiting from Galway a couple of weeks ago ... the brother in law, John, gave me a number of cd's, one being 'Luke Kelly the Collection'containing the song as a version learned from Ewan ... being of Scot/Irish descent and my dad having been a coalminer in stellerton nova scotia, the imagery is easy for me to see ... i remember as a boy visiting my granparents in westville and stellerton and seeing them as dirty old towns ... the coaldust was everywhere and still burned in most of the homes... in winter the snow was black ... also even though our family has been here since the late 1700's i had heard the term 'croft' and not known what it was ... i am so happy to have found this site with the truth of the song ... i've always tried to sing songs as i believe they were origionaly written ... i just learned the song this morning and will be able to sing it, with confidence knowing where it came from ... dave macpherson