Can we clear on thing up about this before it dominates this thread - which I have no intention of being part of.
I don't know the facts of this - nobody does, but I do know that our folk songs, particularly Irish and Scots ones, carry a mass of information that is excluded from our history books because of who made them and why they were made
My argument has always been that "If you want to know the details of The Napoleonic Wars you go to the history books and official records, if you want to know of the experiences and the feelings of those who actually did the fignting, you need to go to the songs and the very few contemporary statements of those who fought"
Pat and I have done a great deal of research on locally made song, those often made during the lives of the singers we recorded - there are literally hundreds of songs similar to Lord Leitrim - largely ignored by the anthologists
One old singer told us a couple of years ago "If a man farted in church, somebody made a song about it"
The information contained in these songs is not necessarily accurate, nut it is an indication that the events probably took place
Quite often, the events have never been documented, but have been carried in the memories of the people they happened to and passed on - they are a vital, but much neglected part of hour history
Leitrim was a vicious landlord, one of the worst - that seems to be an accepted fact - but he wan't on his own
This is a period shortly after a million people died of starvation despite the fact that there was enough food locked in warehouses to feed four times the population of Ireland (a documented fact)
If farmers whose crops failed could not pay their rent to the (largely absentee) landlords, they were turned out onto the roads and their homed were "tumbled" ((reduced to rubble) so they could not return
Many dug holes in the ground and survived from eating the few wild plants growing in the fields
Skipping the rent by allowing the landlord to shag your daughter is not illogical by any means
Most of the events of this country were not documented - if you were a ruking power, would you preserve such evidence of your nobility's behaviour?
Similar behaviour was taking place throughout the Empire - India, Africa; even within Britain itself, in Scotland and Wales
I have to say that I find myself somewhat amused that people who obviously hadn't come across Leitrim or his songs shold, knee-jerk fashion, leap to his defence without knowing a single thing about him.
I'm happy to discuss these songs and their historical reliability and significance with anybody and at any time - the subject has become an absorbing one with me - but not on a thread that's still alive
You want to take this further - open a thread and let those who wish to continue with this equally interesting subject do so
Jim Carroll