David, when are you going to understand that you cannot constrict music or any other art form with simplistic notions of "nationality"? The musicians I know and mix with don't give a flying fuck about that kind of thing - we simply plays what appeals to us musically.

You quite clearly know nothing whatsoever about folk tunes and their origins and inter-relationship. Here's an example to confound your puerile arguments:

Our band plays tunes in sets - both for dancing to and listening to. One of the sets we play is "The Irish Washerwoman" coupled with "Brighton Camp". What could be simpler, I hear you whisper - an Irish tune followed by an English tune (and perhaps we shouldn't be playing the Irish one... eh?)

Well, it ain't quite as simple as that. If you turn to your copy of Playford - and you do have a copy of Playford, don't you - you'll find a tune called "Dargason". When you play it, you'll hear an interesting resemblance in its melody lines to the "The Irish Washerwoman". Which came first - the washerwoman or the Dargason? Are they related? Do they go under different names in different regions? Take a look at the "Fiddlers Companion" website or "TheSession.org" to read about relationships, commonalities and alternative titlings to a myriad of tunes from the British Isles.

OK - on to "Brighton Camp". What could be more English, eh? However, it's commonly thought that this may well be an Irish tune and there's certainly an early printing of it in a Dublin tune book.

D'ye see what I'm getting at? When you start trolling on about musicians who should be playing this or should be playing that, you're in the realm of stereotype and cliché. It's quite clear that you have no idea about music or what drives people to play it. Why not attempt to play an instrument properly - join a band - play duets with other people - buy some tunebooks - listen - listen - listen.

Then - and only then - will you start to get a clue what it's all about.