Steve,

Much as I admire your knowledge and scholarship, your reply still doesn't address the question. I know there are lots of versions on broadsides etc and that lots of versions have been collected, mainly in England, but none, so far as I know, have the well-known tune that we have come to love and loathe. The question is - what is the real source of the Clancy Brothers/Dubliners' tune? Or is it a mystery? My motive in asking is that the Irish claim it is Irish and the English claim it is English. Can someone enlighten me? Does Malcolm Douglas know? Does anyone know?

Tradsinger