Many thanks to John Moulden for pointing to the full broadside text in the Bodleian. It looks like a well-crafted satire, but the humour is rather harsh.

Toadfrog, I can understand your perplexity at the English lyrics of 'The Red-Haired Man's Wife'. I did recently enjoy listening to Chris Miles sing it in English; she sang it so convincingly that it didn't matter in the least that it doesn't make much sense! However the Irish novelist William Carleton wrote in 'Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry' that his mother, Mary Kelly, a very fine singer, "had a prejudice against singing the Irish airs to English words...I remember on one occasion, when she was asked to sing the English version of that touching melody "The Red-haired Man's Wife", she replied, "I will sing it for you; but the English words and the air are like a quarrelling man and wife: the Irish melts into the tune, but the English doesn't.""

Matthew