The Coolin

The air itself is sometimes claimed to have been composed by Carolan, though John Glen (1900) said that the "ancient Irish melody" was in fact usually known as "Molly St George" at the beginning of the 18th century.

[4] Other versions appeared in several late 18th century collections, as well as in the 1795 opera The Wicklow Mountains, written by John O'Keeffe with music by William Shield.

L. Donnellan, in a survey of the various texts and tunes of The Coolin, published in the 1912 Journal of the County Louth Archaeological Society, was equally dismissive: he states that Walker's "credulous" story of it referring to an English statute was "fabricated by his friend [William] Beauford".

The oldest and best-known Irish text definitely associated with the tune is a love-poem addressed to a fair-haired girl (cúilfhionn); this is attributed to a poet called Muiris Ó Duagáin or Maurice O'Dugan of Benburb and said to have been written in around 1641.

A version of Ó Duagáin of Benburb's poem was also printed, with translations, in Douglas Hyde's Love Songs of Connacht (1893), with the first line A's éirigh do shuidhe a bhuachaill a's gléus dam mo ghearrán ("And rise up lad, and get ready for me my nag").

[8] Donnellan, after dismissing Walker, Grattan Flood and O'Curry's other suggestions, states that the probability "is that O'Dugan of Benburb did compose a poem with this air perhaps substantially the same as the different versions given by Hardiman, Vol.

[1] Writing in the early 1800s, O'Curry said that the title "The Coolin" was first applied to the air in the 18th century after it was used by a poet, Father Oliver O'Hanley (fl.

Donnellan noted that the version of the air used by Moore was substantially "correct and unaltered", particularly in comparison to Bunting's, when compared with early 19th and late 18th century copies of the tune, though it still showed some evidence of having been adapted by an "instrumentalist".

[14] Stephens said that his poem, "The Coolun", was based on another by "Raftery",[15] but seems to bear some similarity to parts of the O'Hanley text Ceó meala lá seaca, ar choilltibh dubha baraighe.