the altan version used the city of st john'stown, as the local, which has me wondering about the origion of the song. helen creighton collected a version located in st jihn'stown from southern new brunswick from an irish singer angelo dorman or dundee, so is this a new brunswick song origionally==the helen creighton version is very old, older than any irish version i've seen but i haven't looked at them all.

it's in "folk songs of southern new brunswick"

for anyone silly enough to join this quest.

there are quite a few canadian maritime songs that turn up on recent irish and scottish albums, usually using helun creighton lyrics. i thibk they are looking for variety. altan has recorded a few cape breton jigs andreels.

and there are a few gaelic songs that are either writen in the maritimes (notably by norman nicholson)or the songs have disapeared in scotland