Pip: "folk" has been used as a label for anybody who plays anything with an acoustic guitar, writes their own songs, plays unplugged, has a beard etc since at least the 1960s. One newspaper recently claimed the popularity of an American band called the Fleet Foxes who sound like Crosby Stills & Young, have acoustic guitars and beards meant that "folk" was hip again. Thats why all these "what is folk" and "so-and-so isn't folk" arguments are pointless because the world in general has its own idea of what folk is. Why not say "traditional music" or better still something specific like "irish traditional music" if that's what you mean. Both lots of BBC Folk Awards are run by Radio 2 - popular mainstream station, popular mainstream labeling - and the young ones are not called the Young Tradition like they used to be. In Scotland they have Traditional music awards, no confusion. Traditional music from everywhere in the world will fare much better by being called traditional music and not being confused with what the global music industry calls folk. They won ages ago I'm afraid - there's not point keeping fighting long lost battles. I'm very happy that lots of people playing good traditional-ish music get into the finals of both sets of Folk Awards each year, and win on the whole.