Regarding Captain Birdseye's initial question about 'showmanship and virtuosity', it would be difficult to ignore the role that travelling musicians played in the history of Ireland's music. I'm particularly thinking about uilleann pipers, such as the Dorans, whose style was a deliberate combination of said two elements for the simple reason that, if Johnny or Felix was standing in a marketplace or outside a showground, it brought in the cash.

Moving on a step, if Willie Clancy hadn't heard Johnny Doran play, then he'd never have taken up the pipes and neither would countless others who followed in Willie's traces.

As for Seán McGuire (his own preferred spelling), he was certainly not the first Irish fiddler to attempt to apply classical techniques to traditional music - Néillidh Boyle had been doing such from the late 1930s onwards.

Personally, I've never been able to tolerate McGuire's playing of slow airs - an over-abundance of melancholia - but his technical agility on tunes such as 'The Mason's Apron' was wondrous to behold, especially if you were there at the time.

Martin Hayes is a completely different kettle of rosin and I don't reckon he'd ever enjoy being described as a 'virtuoso'. He possesses the most intuitive 'ear' I've ever encountered in traditional music and his playing during live performances is all about a shared discovery of a tune's possibilities. Of course, at times, this exploration wanders far afield from a standard version of a reel or jig, but I've never found the journey less than enthralling.