Thanks for posting, Colin. Always nice to hear it 'from the horses mouth' While you are on - I was talking to Vera Aspey on Monday - She is buying a copy of 'Albion' just for the comment 'Vera is a saint':-)

If anyone doubts that the craic does not, or did not, exist or thought that sessions were still easy to find, then I can add that it was not my experience back in the early 2000's either - I was very lucky in that there was a Sean Maccarthy festival going on in Finuge and, aside from one other session in Listowel, I found mainly juke boxes and C&W! If you don't believe me maybe you would believe an Irish Musician, Anthony John Clarke, in his song 'Tuesday night is always Karaoke' -

The songs are full of wit as well as insight. 'Tuesday Night is Always Karaoke' is a fantastic song that laments the passing of the live session. With lines like "a priest appeared from nowhere with those 'Fields of Athenry' and a Welshman murdered 'Vincent' and 'American Pie'", you can sympathise with the sentiment if you ever witnessed such musical carnage.

He even mentions Athenry!

Cheers

DeG