Still no references of what we'll find at your club - read a lesson into that Al
Irish traditional music is flourishing, particularly among young people - the reason - it never abandoned its base; people who came to the music had masses of examples to draw from - all recognisable as traditional.
It will survidve for at least another two generations because of this fact.
People coming into the music for the first time can do what they want with it - and they do, but they have a model to hold up and say - "this is what we are and this is what we do".
The last time I was in an English folk club I was nearly blinded by the glare of bald heads and grey hair - same old tiny number of faces as those that were there last time I visited it twenty years ago.
You don't even have a reference point, no definition, no literature, no archived examples - just evasive waffle.
You have failed totally to involve the world outside your little bubble, and it's them who ring the changes and evolve the language to redefine definitions, not the little band who turn up at the Boggart Hole Clough 'Folk' club, or whoever and wherever you are.
Stay with your Alice in Wonderland of "words mean what I want them to mean - and I'm not telling you what that is" if you want, but don't accuse me of re-classifying anything.
By the way - Ewan MacColl didn't "write" folk songs and he always made a point of emphasising that fact - he sang fold songs, and introduced many of us to them, but his own creations were just that - his compositions, largely, but not exclusively based on folk styes.
One thing you were guaranteed of when you came away from one of his performances was an earful of folk songs - not a Buddy Holly wannabe in sight t.b.t.g. - I could get that at my local pub session most weeks.
Jim Carroll