G'day again,

John Moulden (and Bruce O): I don't have the reference in front of me but, somewhere a decade or two back, I remember the reference from Henry Mayhew, the English journalist / proto-sociologist / ~anthropologist, (in his book, The London Poor, ~ 1850?) that the most common tune used by ballad sheet sellers, to hawk their wares, was Youghal Harbour ... the tune also used for Boulavogue and (in Australia) for Moreton Bay, a folk song based ultimately on a poem by "Frank the Poet" (Irish convict Francis McNamara).

This would certainly be because so many of them (in 1850) would have been displaced Irishmen from the 'famine' ... something on which he comments in other entries, such as that on costermongers.

Regards,

Bob Bolton