Ireland is often quoted as having an ideal musical pub culture & in many ways it has- however noise level in a pub during a set of reels can horrendous & near-impossible to create a 'change of atmosphere'- is that Sandy Bells 2.0 ?

But the atmosphere does not suffer at all in Ireland- it's not lack of respect, rather an indication of self confidence in that music being every much a part of a good night out as a sequence of Abba recordings in an English pub. AND normally in a PUBLIC BAR rather than tucked away from the non-folkies, as is the norm in Britain (there are exceptions).

It's 99pc spontaneous too!- the concept of 'regular session tunes' is alien there & also to me - the other extreme to the Irish approach I experienced a while back in a 'session' of mainly English people in a fairly unwilling Scottish pub, where the leader was turning the pages of his wee book saying we'll do number 22 and then 41- oh dear. I'd hope Sandy Bell's hasn't sunk that far- it was always a good pub with good music, but Barbara's views would gain my respect.