1 We were provided with links to stuff about Carroll and Mackenzie on the Clare County Library web site. This includes personal information about the two. "They met in London in 1969 as members of a singing workshop run by singer, songwriter and playwright Ewan MacColl,".

When I put this same information in a thread about Jim Carroll, hoping that Jim might keep his personal anecdotes to one thread, and that he might put up some information about the many publications the two claimed to have produced, I was told I was 'doxing' Jim by putting personal information on line. On that basis, Clare County Library web site is 'doxing' Jim Carroll.

But in reality neither Clare Library nor I were doxing Jim Carroll.

2 The sleeve notes on Puck to Appleby raise interesting questions relevant to mediation, being an example of it. Sleeve notes as a genre are a relatively recent invention. Somebody claimed that Wilgus originated the idea, but I don't know whether this is the case.

There seems to be no agreed format, but often information is provided about singers' backgrounds as well as about the songs.

I would not take what it says in the Puck to Appleby sleeve notes as gospel. There are several reasons for this.

The first one has been outlined by Jack Campin higher up this post.

Secondly, there is a detailed and negative review of some other sleeve notes b the same couple on MUSTRAD. This casts doubt on the quality of their work. I cannot comment on all the points made by the reviewer, but some I can and fully agree with.

I can see that this is, as the reviewer said 'utter rubbish': "Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, famine, evictions, political upheaval and general poverty led to mass emigration from Ireland". The reviewer thought that the problem was that JC and PM don't grasp the meaning of the word 'throughout', which is a reasonable way of thinking about it. But I think the problem may be a lack of a grasp of grammatical factors, ie how the adverbial functions in the sentence as a whole. JC and PM appear not to have grasped what they had done wrong, even given this level of feedback. They claimed that people in Clare were laughing at the reviewer's lack of an understanding of mass emigration.

Thirdly, claims are made in the Puck to Appleby notes and the web site regarding the history of the song Barbara Allen. Twice we are told that it first appeared in print in an 18th century work by Allan Ramsay. However, it appears that there was a broadside earlier than that. By coincidence I was looking at this:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5jBl5r50P0zKGJm5nLTpwpq/never-heard-of-barbara-allen-the-worlds-most-collected-ballad-has-been-around-for-450-years

I will note that even the information provided about Child by Carroll and Mackenzie on the Clare web site is wrong. He did not assemble his ballads from 'printed' sources: some of them were from manuscripts. Even I know that.

2 Following the links provided leads one to a lecture by JC and PM. One can imagine a lot of what they say: we have all read it over and over on Mudcat. The interesting bit is where it gets 'theoretical'. The claim is made that they discovered

"We found what seemed to be an innate feeling, an understanding, about the songs which has no bearing on intellectual ability or learning"

I note the non standard use of 'no bearing on' here, but the general idea is clear. They claimed a particular research finding to the effect that particular people had an 'innate' understanding and feeling about songs, enabling them to distinguish proper folk from the other rubbish. Assuming they know what 'innate' means, this is a strong claim, and one for which in my view there is no justification whatsoever in the bits of tape recorded stuff they produce to back it up. It is for me an example of mediation and worth discussing. How come certain people are not born with this understanding and feeling?