Thanks to all of you who have responded so quickly to my request and for your input.

Malcolm Douglas: I have sent you a direct message and most of the points in that will be covered here for everyone,

McGrath of Harlow: After reading below, will you post or send to me how you know the song "Shall my soul..." is "definitely" from the time of MacSwiney's death and not possibly before.

Les B: Does the Bluegrass Songbook give the ealiest date for the song? I have 1963.

The songbook is almost surely incorrect in stating that it is based on the Irish classic "Kevin Barry". The words, with the exception of geographical locations and other minor changes are absolutely identical to "Shall my soul...". The melody may be to "Kevin Barry"; but the words, almost wholesale, belong to the song I am researching. You can verify this in the database at this site.

I should point out that Terence MacSwiney(starvation) and Kevin Barry(hanging) died within one week of each other in 1920. So the "Kevin Barry" song is definitely 1920, or later in the same decade possibly. The song "Shall my soul... is said to commemorate Terence MacSwiney. The question I am raising is whether that is the earliest date for the song? A true CW version, as a rewrite of the Irish song from an even earlier date would prove the MacSwiney reference wrong.

I should, also, point out that "Shall my soul... definitely preceded Charlie Moore"s song, at least to MacSwiney's time, if not before. My mother who was born in 1912 in Ireland(immigrated to the U.S. at age 18) knew the song sometime as a child. She passed it along to me along with many others. This confirms that the song was around in the decade of 1920-1930, before my mother immigrated. It , also calls in question the "originality" of the Charlie Moore song.

What I have been trying to determine is whether it is an even earlier song. When there were statements that "The Legend of the Rebel Soldier" was a "Confederate" rewrite of the Irish song, it prompted my search to attempt to verify whether there was a true Confederate poem or song.

The song "shall my soul..." is said to be a shorter and simpler rewrite of "Bingen on the Rhine", a poem by Caroline Norton(1808-1877) and published possibly between(1847-1859). I am giving consideration to the possibility that the Irish song was written closer to the date of publicatin of Bingen, to commemorate all Irish prisoners in British prisons.

The song may have been later revived and possibly changed to commemorate MacSwiney and, since then, has ben passd down in oral history as his song. I have seen variations where the words "British prison" were changed to "Brixton prison" which is the exact prison where MacSwiney died. This is the version I learned. The only words that tie this song specifically to MacSwiney are "Cork city grand", of which he was Lord Mayor, and these could have been an addition to the original version. If the Irish song was written specifically for MacSwiney, then someone waited 60 to 70 years, after the publication of Bingen, to do a rewrite specifically for MacSwiney.