EKanne;
One of the things I have noticed among field singers here in Ireland is the lack of demarcation between women's and men's songs. It is quite common for a man to sing a song from a woman's point of view, and vise versa.
The Lord Gregory I referred to came from John 'Jacko' Reilly' of Roscommon, recorded by Tom Munnelly - he knew it as 'Lord Googley'. The principle source of the ballad in Ireland was Mrs Cronin of County Cork, but since then it has appeared in the field a few times from (from memory), Mr Siney Crotty (Clare), Ollie Conway (Clare) and Tom Moran (Leitrim). We recorded a fragment of it from Kerry Traveller Peggy Delaney, who learned it from her father.
Lord Randal in its adult form is quite a rare ballad. We recorded it from Mary Delaney and her brother as Buried in Kilkenny (brother Paddy Reilly's version was included on the Voice of The People series.) I think that both of them learned it from their mother.
I must confess I have always regarded Lord Randal, a dialogue ballad, as neither male nor female.
There have been a little over fifty Child ballads recovered in Ireland over the last 40 years, some of them rareties (The Maid and The Palmer, Prince Robert, Sweet William and Fair Margaret, Young Hunting, Johnny Scot, The Demon Lover, The Green Wedding, Geordie.....). Some of them are due directly to the Scots presence in Ulster, but the Republic has proved a fruitful source. In this area (West Clare; Munster) the most popular ballads are Captain Wedderburn's Courtship, Lord Lovel, Lord Bateman and - most strangely, the one you can't throw a stone without hitting a singer of - The Suffolk Miracle.
Jim Carroll