greg,

Do you really find it necessary to react like that every time someone puts the word Irish into a thread name ?

The version that Jimmy C was looking for is in the Irish language, which as far as I know is neither Scotish nor English.

Andy recorded the song with Planxty before Paul Brady did. Paul found his version in the US, which is obviously where the song was written. From both the language in the song and the tune, I'd say the author was Irish, but that is neither here nor there.

I'm not sure if the song was set around the American Civil war although "foreign money" could be a clue to this as the confederacy issued their own currency, which would have been useless after the war was over. Might also date back to the time of the battle of New Orleans (about 1812 if my memory serves me right)- Louisiana being a French settlement may have had a different currency in those days ?

I think it was actually Paul Brady who recorded it on Eist aris. I'll check out the CD this evening and will post the words some time soon.