Thing is, we've lost so much choice. Go into HMV, look on iTunes and see if much of the rarer stuff can be found. HMV's folk section has become Flannagan and Allen and iTunes seems confused about what folk actually is (The Lightning Seeds?). No chance of picking up a Paddy Canny album there.

I wonder if that's completely true. On one level there's the trend, especially among Irish musicians, of releasing albums privately and sell them on to distributors like Claddagh or CIC. Now, the advantage of this is that the artists retain full control (that is if they stay with the above distributors and don't fall for the ones that pay a pittance or not at all).

I did an album with a friend a few years ago and was surprised how far the reach of the distributors actually was. Copies could be ordered from Tesco UK! (although I doubt anybody did in fairness).

It's easier than ever to buy on-line, directly from the musicians or from distributors or other on-line retailers like Custy's who often have an amazing selection.

I don't see any problem with downloads of albums that are long out of print, sometimes by musicians who are long gone. Speaking of Clare musicians, the Ceol Alainn site put up an extremely obscure lp which included Bobby Casey, Raymond Roland, John Roe, Liam Farrell and a few tracks by Gay McKeon. It was released on Breandan Mulkere's label and to be honest I had never heard of it or seen any reference to it ever. I had no qualms whatsoever downloading it. It's nice enough not great maybe but nice in a rough and ready way. I was happy to have been introduced to it that way. And yes, I have since bought the lp on Ebay, nobody else bid on it so I got it cheap too, not that it makes a difference as the musicians wouldn't get anything from that sale either.