In the same way that being Irish has always been 'other' to being English/British or Anglo American.

So it is easy to see how some (not all by any means!) Eastern European and Irish music slipped in to the 'world music' box early on.

Nowadays, it seems to really annoy English trad folk off that Irish trad seems to fit so easily in with the rest of the world, while English trad continues to hammer away in relative obscurity.

And I love English trad. But it isn't the music itself I'm talking about here, though.

I'm talking about race and class assumptions that go into labelling music, when done by white European and American music industry types.