"The surest way to kill off traditional music is to stick it in a museum."

And the surest way to make sure that it will die with us is not to preserve it and not to allow future generations to listen to Jeannie Robertson and Seamus Ennis and Joe Heaney and Sam Larner and Texas Gladden... an all those wonderful old singers and musicians who have contributed to our pleasure and knowledge.
Ireland's present success was established on the foundations of having two world-class 'museums' - the Irish Traditional Music Archive and that of the Folklore Society of Ireland at UCD - both still persuading Irish youth how enjoyable and how important Irish traditional music is (interesting to see how many fine young musicians have volunteered to help out at ITMA - in their holidays and full time. (Jim Carroll)

When I made the above statement I did not intend to disparage the worthy institutions such as ITMA that do such valuable work. My comment was directed not so much at physical museums as at attempts by the 1954 crowd and others to draw a line in the sand of time as to what music is worthy or not of being called traditional.