Ivan Little interviiews Maurice Leyden about the "Old Songs of Belfast".

A folk-song collecter, singer, broadcaster and writer, Maurice Leyden is an expert in Ulster folk-song. In this feature, we meet Leyden as he conducts research in the Linen Hall Library, examining newspapers from 1935 for hidden songs. He observes that such songs were often part of a verbal tradition, were never written down and, so, "many songs may have been lost forever". 

In this respect, he notes, it takes a substantial amount of work to find new 'old' material.  

Leyden then takes the viewer on a musical tour of Belfast, referring to a variety of songs, the lyrics of each namechecking a street, or streets, throughout the city, with the final stop at University Square.

An Ulster Television production

Interviewer: Ivan Little

Featured: Maurice Leyden

• NI Direct - PRONI