Christy Moore, in One Voice - My life in song tells about this song how he met Bono in 1985 in Toronto Airport and they decided to try to sing and meet together. When he met Bono at The Dubliner's tribute show (no date given; 25 years? 30 years?) I showed Bono a song I was working on, and we sat down and the song became his. The first verse is all that survived Bono's improvements.

Christy Moore ends his ramblings about this song (without telling anything about what you ask, Marian) with these words: I have talked and talked for years about my work, trying to sell albums and concert seats while the interviewers strove to sell magazines. Most of it is all drivel and of absolutely no consequencs.
Sing the song.

However, Christy also prints in this book an earlier draft of what later became North and South of the river which then was altered considerably by Bono. Here's the early draft:

HANDS ACROSS THE LOUGH
(Christy Moore)

Before this heart stops beating
I want to know
what turns you on
I want to reach out
and offer you
my hand across the lough
to embrace you
and hold you tight
to fear you not
upon some country raod
in the dark of the night
maybe we could stand side by side
in the one light.

I want to lay down my fear
and surrender my anger
to meet you on an unapproved road
and share with you
how hard it is to get good spuds
or that I hear the corncrake
beyond in some distant meadow

But as I stand here at the gable of this ruin
on the edge of Ballyscullion wood
I wonder who it was that dwelt here
on divided and sub-divided land
Divvied up until no longer worth keeping
what family fled away from here
driven by a bully's hand.

The placename Ballyscullion Wood might be a hint about the original idea for the location of the song. I found a Ballyscullion in Co. Derry, N. Ireland, near a Lough Beg which may or may not be the lough Christy had in mind.

Wolfgang