The question of folk and money is much more complicated than has been discussed so far IMO.
As was said earlier in the thread, of course there is nothing wrong with anybody being paid for singing, researching, teaching, writing about... whatever... folksongs and music, any more than there is with any other pursuit. When the tradition was alive and thriving the act of singing and playing was largely an unpaid activity, this is no longer the case. Carolan, and all those unnamed minstrels may have fed into and taken from the tradition, but they were not part of it; their audiences and paymasters were the landed gentry and nobility, certainly not 'the folk' (read Donal O'Sullivan's excellent study of Carolan and his music).
The problem for me is not whether a performer is being paid, but rather, what effect this has on his/her performance, if any.
I get a little tired of hearing, "I've got to pay my bills, feed the kids, put petrol in the car" – and all the other excuses for performing in a certain way, or including material that has little (if any) connection with 'folk' or 'tradition' – in other words, does not do exactly what it says on the tin. My response is usually, – "tough; go and get a proper job". Singers and musicians who perform solely to suit their bank balances are little more than cultural juke-boxes – in goes the coin, out comes the product.
I am not suggesting that being professional automatically makes for a bad, insincere or unprincipled performance, but I do believe that there is a danger of allowing he who pays the piper to call the tune to the detriment of the music. We should have learned that from the monkey-suits and the anodyne performances of the 'folk boom'.
Money should not make one happ'orth (no pun intended!) of difference one way or another – but all too often it does.
My favourite story about payment (those who have heard it bear with me – it's a good story, no matter how many times I hear it) is told by Ciarán MacMathúna, who was collecting for one of his radio programmes down in Kerry. He recorded an old fiddle player, and at the end of the session said to him; "there is the matter of a small recording fee".
The old man thought for a minute, and said, "I'm taking a bullock to the market tomorrow, so I should be able to pay you then".
If only..... nah, forget it!
Then, of course there's the (IMO) thoroughly dishonest practice of tweaking traditional material, then claiming ownership by copyrighting it... or the behaviour of the Irish Musical Rights (in league with CCE) and Performing Rights Societies in claiming performance fees for traditional music.... but that's for another time maybe.
Jim Carroll