I SEE WHERE revisionism now stretching its ugly tentacles into our musical heritage. My consonantal colleague Y recently drew attention to an article in Archaeology Ireland, which has, perhaps inadvertently, been deromanticising Percy French's great emigrant ballad, "Come Back Paddy Reilly".

Mr Conleth Manning has, apparently discovered there is more to the famous bridge at Finnea (referred to in the song) than meets the eye: "I was surprised to find that high and dry on each side of the drained and deepened river, now spanned by a single wide 19th century arch, were three arches of a much older bridge."

The funny thing is that I was up that direction myself not that long back, on what you might think off as a fairly eccentric expedition, namely an attempt to locate the drain into which "Long Magee" was famously assisted by Paddy Reilly, after Magee slandered Paddy's darling Rosie Kilrain.

It took me three days tramping across the bogs between Billis Bridge and Crosserlough but the discomfort was worth it when I came across the remains of an old culvert about four miles this side of Cross Keys.

There is clear archaeological evidence - at least there was after I took a pickaxe to all the surrounding junk - that this was the very drain mentioned in the song, though a lot further down from the road than suggested by the lyrics. With a steep drop of about 30 feet, it is almost certain that with Paddy Reilly's forceful assistance, Magee's tumble into the drain would have proved fatal.

In my excitement I even dug down a few feet in the hopes of finding the rascal's remains but of course they would be buried a long way down by now. It might be worth while getting the Board of Works in with an earth mover one of these days.

Meanwhile, Y tells us that if you want to get to Ballyjamesduff or Cootehill, you turn right after crossing the Finnea bridge and "never mind Percy French's line" about turning to the left at the Bridge of Finnea and stopping when half way to Cootehill.

This is a bit simplistic. In the first place, as an emigrant in Manchester, Paddy Reilly was almost certainly viewing the area from a different direction. It is known he had relatives in the Bunlahy area and he may therefore have been thinking of the approach from the north west.

As with so many of his countrymen, it is likely that Paddy Reilly was not averse to a drink or two either, so some confusion may have arisen. It is a bit uncharitable to blame the poor fellow for that.

The important point is that the directions as given in the song did not specifically refer to Ballyjamesduff, but to what Paddy called "the garden of Eden". By this it is clear he did not mean the town itself but a nearby locality he wanted to keep to himself, no doubt for his own good reasons - environmental, tourism related or whatever.

But the entire Ballyjamesduff Cootehill Carrickmacross conurbation is one in which it is all too easy to get lost. It is not for nothing that locals know the area as the Bermuda Triangle: many a man coasting innocently along the N3 from Kells to Cavan has suddenly found himself as far adrift as Doonaree or Relaghbeg.

There are some other potentially confusing references in the Percy French oeuvre. It seems that "little crooked Paddy", a guest at Phil the Fluther's Ball, was not necessarily from the Tiraloughett bog itself, and there is some evidence that the flower of Ardmagullion may have been a first cousin once removed to the Oklahoma Rose. But generally speaking there is no attempt to mislead.

If we do not stand fast on these matters, we could find the Mountains of Mourne transported to Armagh by some eager young archaeologist intent on making a name.

It would be more useful if our historians or other experts could pinpoint the exact night that Miss Cooney eloped, give us better directions to the grave of Abdulla Bulbul Ameer ("where the waves of the Blue Danube roll") and perhaps locate more precisely the ancestral home of the darlin' girl from Clare.

With regard to the latter, Corofin's claims have always been strong, but there is a new and fairly well founded claim being made by the Ennistymon crowd who have long been ignored. It is time they were given a hearing.