Sorefingers,

I say that ballads were more characteristic of English and Scots culture than of Gaelic culture because, well, there aren't that many ballads in Gaelic, compared to hundreds and hundreds in the Anglo-Saxon dialects of English and Scots. Apart from the almost-epic tradition of Fianna songs, which had almost died out by the last century, and a few other examples [the Gaelic Lord Randall springs to mind], narrative songs are just not that common in Gaelic.

The same is true, by the way, of African American culture: when songs are about events, they tend to emote about them, highlight individual incidents, etc, but not give a narrative. So songs about disasters tend to be lyric laments, not ballads. These are tendencies, not hard and fast rules, so "Blues Ballads" do exist, as do Gaelic ballads. But they're not that common.

I was not aware that the debate was about tunes. In my mind it was about the songs "The Unfortunate Rake" and "Rocking The Cradle." Since songs like these travel on printed broadsides without their tunes, often they will have different tunes in different places. I was talking about the words when I said the evidence pointed to an English origin. Once again, I mean not to impugn anyone or any theory, I'm just saying where the (admittedly imperfect) evidence points us. As for the tunes, they could well be Irish--I don't even know if the tune you are thinking of is the same one I know.

Amos: it is possible that the version you know is obviously Irish without that meaning that the song originated in Ireland. The version I know is obviously Australian, because it mentions Kiandra. But the place name was introduced to the song by A.L. Lloyd. Before that, it was still Australian (collected from an Australian woman), but you couldn't tell that from the words or tune.

It would be interesting to see if there are systematic differences between English and Irish versions of these songs--what folklorists call "oicotypes." If there are, we could see which oicotypes were closest to "Git Along Little Dogies" and "Streets of Laredo," and that would confirm or disprove an Irish source for the Texas versions. But this is a huge project that Jed probably doesn't want to get into! Most often people in his position just fudge slightly and assume an Irish source. This would not stand scholarly scrutiny, but it's fine for creating an interesting program for audiences that still isn't historically impossible.