Very true, of course
When we started collecting in Clare I used to hold my head in my hands each time we were given 'yet another bleedin' song about mammy and home" - until I realised that we had not met a single family who hadn't lot a relative to 'the emigration'
Up to 'The Tiger', there was hardly a young person between the ages of eighteen and thirty living in the Miltown Malbay area - better now, but not much
My own family were Famine Refugees, but you tend not to relate that sort of thing to the songs until you put them in context
Jim
ONE of my FAVOURITES