"I have read extensively many of the articles at Musical Traditions,[an excellent site]including the review of Around the Hills of Clare,and I have read your subsequent hostile letters[enthusiasms no 46]."

Without wishing to get sucked into the highly detailed, largely academic and often vituperative exchanges over MT's review of "Around The Hills of Clare", I must say that - as a regular CD reviewer myself - I've always believed strongly that it's the critic's duty to review the actual music first, with any comments concerning liner notes, cover art, etc. having strictly secondary importance. I learnt almost nothing about the musical content of the Clare recordings from MT's review; instead I read a staggering 8,000 words devoted almost entirely to criticism of Jim Carroll and Pat Mackenzie's accompanying booklet. Whether the criticisms were justified or not is beyond my expertise, but that does seem an astonishing ordering of priorities - as was pointed out in several of the letters that followed the review (see MT's "Enthusiasms #46").

Perhaps it should not be so astonishing that the tiny number of people on the planet with a passion for traditional song should be so determined to tear lumps out of each other but, nonetheless, I am astonished. The same goes for this thread. Calm down, dears.