The Forum search seems to be down, so I apologise if there has been a thread on this before (I remember that we have had some significant discussion about the long boats from Antrim and so on).
I jusr ran across in Charles Kingsley's famous 1855 novel Westward Ho, the following snippet of song:

"Oh Bideford is a pleasant place, it shines where it stands,
And the more I look upon it, the more my heart it warms;
For there are fair young lasses, in rows upon the quay,
To welcome gallant mariners, when they come home from sea." In the novel, another sailor complains that the original song is about Sunderland.

What strikes a neophyte is that the first two lines are almost identical to the opening of Bonny Portmore.

yours, Peter T.