'Skewball/Stewball' - the Irish connection

Thanks to Jim MacArdle of the Skillet Lickers Revival of Co. Louth for drawing our attention to the connection between Ireland and the American song 'Stewball' celebrating a racehorse, noted by Alan Lomax and recorded by Lead Belly and subsequently by Lonnie Donegan and others. Jim sends copies of material including two pages from the venerable Dundalk publication Tempest's Annual for 1953, which reproduces by permission of the Irish Field an account of the Bellewstown races of June-July 1752. One of the gentlemen taking part was Arthur Mervyn of Naul, Co. Dublin (location of the Seamus Ennis Cultural Centre), who owned large flour mills and several horses, of which the most famous was Skewball, a son of the Godolphin Arabian. Skewball was entered for the 40 Guineas race at Bellewstown against Mr Bellingham's mare Sophia on Friday 3 July 1752. Alan Lomax's American folksongs, p. 91, prints words of the work song 'Stewball', in use in the Mississippi penitentiary in 1933; the accompanying notes refer to 'a dullish Anglo-Irish come-all-ye ballad'. Jim also reports that the Skillet Lickers Revival played at the East Anglian Bluegrass Festival last weekend. We look forward to his report.