Lochlainn did not write Mary from Dungloe, and never claimed to have done so. His notes (Irish Street Ballads)read: "Learned from W. Feenan, fisherman of Ardglass, 1913. He had learned it from a Donegal girl; a variant of the air was sung to another ballad - Donegal's the place for all, 'tis there I'd like to be. I gave this to D.J.O'S who printed it in IFSxviii, 29."

Pádraic Colum adapted She Moved Through the Fair from traditional sources, much as Yeats did with The Sally Garden; it was first published, so far as I know, by Herbert Hughes in 1909. There is much more detail in the various and lengthy past discussions here of that song, though my theory that it was Margaret Barry who introduced my dead love to it was wrong; at present it looks as if it was actually John McCormack who was responsible. There is no connection with Patrick Kavanagh.

The text of Star of the County Down, according to Colm O Lochlainn, was written by Cathal McGarvey (who is also credited with The Devil and Bailiff McGlynn). It seems first to have been published (without attribution) by Herbert Hughes in 1936, and was likely written in the 1920s or a little earlier.