A Annraoi, a chara,

Rinne mé cuardach ar an Idirlíon, agus ní raibh mé ábalta ach an giota beag faisnéise seo fán amhrán a fháil (ar an suíomh leis an iris ' Musical Traditions' agus thugtar as alt a scríobh ag Julie Henigan in 'Ulster Folklife' No 37 (1991): pp 97-105):

"While many songs, like Dónal Og (sic) or Róisín Dubh are found throughout the country, others are associated with specific regions. Thus the repertoire of the Connemara singer can be as different from that of his Donegal counterpart as is his singing style. Hiúdaí pointed out to me that there are, for instance, relatively few songs in northeast Donegal about fishing disasters - one of the main themes of the Connemara repertoire. This scarcity may reflect the relatively limited fishing activity of that region, especially in former times. As Hiúdaí (Hiúdaí Ó Duibheannaigh) observed:

'This part of the country, since the Ulster plantation, when people were driven out here to the shores between the mountains and the sea, there was no word at all about fishing ...it was a struggle for existence, a struggle for life, and they made as much as they could out of the moor, out of the mountain. And that was their whole life: trying to get as much out of the land as would keep them alive. There were fishermen, surely, in later years, but not in the old days that I'm talking about. At that time they hadn't boats, they hadn't anything.'

Thus, when such songs appear in the Donegal repertoire, they tend to be imported, as is the case, for instance, with Liam Ó Raghaille, a lament from Connacht. (An Chéad Mháirt de Fhomhair concerns not a fishing disaster, but an expedition across the inlet between Rann na Feirste and Gaoth Dobhair to obtain supplies for the manufacture of poitín.) There are, of course, exceptions - most notably, the mournful Badaí na Scadán (The Herring Boats), which laments the destruction of a fishing boat from Inis Fraoigh (an island which lies between Arranmore and Burtonport on the Donegal coast).