No, Jim, no matter how hard you search you won't find any references from me of songs being made by retired country people. What you will find are my several apologies for my initial 'sneery rejections'.

I must remind you that all of my references referred to that corpus of material collected in the last few years of the 19thc and the early 20thc by the likes of Sharp, Baring Gould, Hammond, Gardiner etc. There isn't a great deal in there that includes specialised knowledge of anything other than the human condition, which is open to all adult humans. Your experiences with Irish travellers in the mid 20th century whilst having obvious overlaps is quite different and you seem to be saying this yourself. We have covered all of this ground before.

I'm sorry if you don't enjoy these discussions. It is usually you who jumps in on my postings, so I assumed you were quite happy with the situation.

Again, I personally don't think it matters one jot where the songs originated. It's what happened to them when they got into the oral tradition that gives them their appeal.

I don't have any feelings either way about kite-flying degree chasers, whatever they are, but I do know academia has contributed a lot to the understanding of these songs and I certainly wouldn't dismiss it.

I will, however, continue to offer my opinion when unsubstantiated romantic nonsense rears its head.

Best wishes as always,
Steve