It has always intrigued me that the last communities to preserve the ballads as an integral part of their culture were the Irish and Scottish Travellers, both non-literate, but both possessing a large and important body of the longest and most subtle examples to be found in the genre.
Just listen to the dignified delicacy of Martin McDonagh's Lady Margaret (Young Hunting), the best piece of ballad singing I have ever heard; or the passion of Sheila McGregor's Tiftie's Annie (not to say that Sheila can't read - I know she can) which never fails to raise the bristles on the back of my neck, though I have been listening to it for nearly fifty years.
Blind singer, Mary Delaney, had a large number of ballads and narrative songs, which she always referred to as 'heavy', and quite often choked up on. It took us about five goes to get her 'Buried In Kilkenny' (Lord Randall).
With Walter Pardon you got a quiet compassion itermingled with an instinctivly deep understanding of the 'bigness' of his ballads.
John Reilly, an impoverished Traveller who died of malnutrition in a derelict house shortly after being discovered by Collector Tom Munnelly, sang The Well Below the Valley (Maid and the Palmer), missing from the tradition for nearly two centuries. He described it as 'a forbidden song' because of its religious connections and its theme of incest.
Kerry Traveller Mikeen McCarthy could barely read or write, but when we asked him what he thought the oldest song he sang was, he unhesiatingly told us 'The Blind Beggar' which was entered in the Stationers Register some time in the 17th century.
Our problem with understanding the songs and ballads has always been that they have been treated as collectable artefacts rather than as parts of the lives of the people who gave them to us.
Personally, it's why I put such an importance on distinguishing between the traditional singer and the revivalist - not because one is more important that the other, but because we are coming to the songs from different directions with different outlooks and backgrounds.
Jim Carroll