Interesting to note that RTE is so far into the trees it has completely missed the forest!

First of all, CD, Albums etc., are done, over, gone, finished. Everybody I know who had collections have converted to MP3, including myself.

Secondly, discriminating aural art collectors go for 'tracks' not bulky heaps of files/ usedtobe CDs etc.

Thirdly, today Folk music is a backdrop the to big picture, the visual, because it is not music that is selling, rather, and not surprisingly, it is video! See YouTube for more data.

Lastly Irish Folk-song today sounds to me too like English did 40 years ago, the same arrangements, and, most confirming of laziness among performers, actual English folk songs as well. What really grinds my gears is that the originals - Maddy Prior/Martin Carthy etc - are far better than the rubbish these geniuses are shoving on the market.

Also, that Irish female singers trying to sound like American is so corny, so stupid that I cringe when they light up! Look! in Ireland you do not live in a climate like ours, you do not live in an American landscape, you do not have even a minuscule bit of what the American life is like, Go sound like yourself in your own accent, with your own singing voice, and your Irish home made tunes and for heaven's sake stop whining like some Colorado hoe busking on the sidewalk.

Finally I find nothing more depressing than some washed up artiste pressuring me with e-come-ons to buy his/her CD. If Irish artists want to impress,how about stop copying American/English style and do their own, like it was back when Irish folk music was original and exciting.

Maureen McCauly / Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh - has it right! The rest of them ....yawn