The English had jigs too. In any case, eighteenth-century songs were usually sung much more slowly than jig time.

The tune title "To the Hundreds of Drury I Write" appears - as though everyone knows the melody - in Robert Drury's farcical ballad opera "The Devil of a Duke; or Trapolin's Vagaries." Unfortunately the tune is not given, though the "Larry" tune, with its unusual ninth line per stanza, fits it quite well.

A text of the "Hundreds" song - written appropriately in cant - appears in "The Musical Companion, or Lady's Magazine" (1741). Another song with of same title (about pimps) is in "The Compleatest Collection of Old and New English and Scotch Songs, that Have Hitherto Been Published" (1745).

All of these books were published in London, and none promises any Irish material.

"The Festival of Anacreon" (ca1790) includes "Larry" to the indicated "Hundreds" tune, with the note that as of that time "Larry" was "A favourite Song in all the Convivial Societies in Ireland."

If current tune for "Larry" is the original - as it most likely is - it certainly appears to be of English, not Irish, origin.