Jim, I don't doubt that what you describe is the case in Ireland but from what I've seen in Liverpool very few Irish students or young Irish graduates are actively involved in Irish music in the city.

In our Comhaltas branch a couple of years ago we decided to try and do something about that. I contacted the local universities to ask about setting up stalls at their freshers' fairs. It turns out that there is now a commercial agency that books stalls at these events for colleges all over Britain. It's big business and it's very expensive. However, we could get a 50% discount if we were a registered charity. Unfortunately, Comhaltas in Britain isn't.

So we approached The Liverpool Irish Festival to see if they wanted to come in with us and split the cost. Not interested. We also asked the local Irish centre to do the same and they agreed. The deal was we would split the costs and manpower and both organisations would share names and email addresses of anyone who wanted to be involved.

The Centre kept all that information and never passed it on to the branch but from being on the stalls myself I could see that neither they nor us were exactly flooded with interest (despite the fact that we had students and young people helping man the stall).

Students are students wherever you go and just because they come from Ireland doesn't meant they're going to be interested in traditional music. English students go to colleges in Scotland and Ireland but that doesn't mean they're all into Martin Carthy and Morris Dancing.