"a reaction to what I believe to have been an insulting remark"
Indeed, Jim, and I'm not complaining. I responded to what I considered a generally abusive comment with a personally abusive comment and you responded to me in kind. 'Nuff said, on the subject of abuse, at least.

As for discussion on folk music, folk scenes or whatever, we move in separate planes that intersect somewhere about a shared liking of old songs. You denigrate, frequently and at length, the current English folk scene. I have no knowledge of, or particular interest in the Irish traditions that you have devoted your life to.

The demise of the sixties folk revival does not bother me in the least. Although I was around at the time, I was put off by the contempt expressed then for CJS, S B-G and all those other stalwarts of the earlier folk revivals.
Quite wrongly, as I am prepared to admit, I saw the sixties folk revival as a pretty fake departure from true folk music, epitomised for me by one song that was and is still very popular among folkies.   Originally, there was a genuine Scottish folk-tune; the poet Tannahill (of the early C19th folk revival) wrote words to it; in the sixties folk revival a chap with an Irish name ditched the folk tune and set a version of Tannahill's words to another tune. I love the song, the "Wild Mountain Thyme," but it is not remotely "folk."