"Well that is not strictly the case. The thing is that the 1954 definition is only accepted by a few adherents."
No it isn't - it has been the basis for all study since its inception and it has never been replaced by anything resembling a comprehensive definition.
Originally, it was conceived from half a centuries work that had taken place beforehand.
"Jim Carrol(l), the history of popular music is littered with examples of songs manufactured to be a 'hit'"
The idea of "manufacturing songs to be a 'hit'" is a relatively new one - most of our folk songs are centuries old.
"Hits" are deliberately churned out in view to them having a shelf life, and being replaced when they have served their purpose of expanding the bank accounts of the industry which markets them - they are products rather than than expressions of opinion and emotion that went in to the making of our folksongs.
Different beasts altogether.
"Ah but Jim. he can write a song and say it is a hit but it might not be."
Then he is wrong in calling it a "hit", just as he would have been wrong in calling it a folk song - far too early to tell in both cases.
Can I make a point here before this revert into the old "old bloke with his finger in his ear" slanging match.
As a singer and a listener, it doesn't matter in the slightest what I call the songs I sing or listen to - I either enjoy them or not according to my personal taste (fairly wide ranging in my case).
As I club organiser I believe I take on the responsibility of presenting what it says on the label so the punter knows what is on offer - matter of personal conscience, I suppose.
When I am writing or talking about folk songs have to be specific what I mean.
As well as their entertainment value, folk songs carry a huge amount of unique social, cultural and historical baggage not included in any other form of artistic expression.
A year ago we walked into our County Library office and asked if they would be interested in putting the four to five hundred songs we have collected in this small corner of County Clare, the idea being that they would take them and immediately put them up.
A year later, they are still not quite ready (October is now the aim).
The Library have had two members of staff working on the project for a year and we have spent a good deal of that period annotating and cross-referencing them.
For us, it has been a massive learning curve in discovering the part that these songs played in the lives of those who made and sang them.
We have been made aware of a whole new genre of songs, over 100 local compositions made on local events, some which have survived, many more that didn't, but simply died when the events were forgotten - all in the surrounding area of a fairly isolated one-street town in the West of Ireland.
We have been lucky enough to find a local man, 90 odd years of age, once a fine singer with a magnificent repertoire but now claiming he is "too old to sing any more".
He is still happy to "give it a go" but, more importantly, he is happy to talk about the songs, their importance to him and his neighbours ad what feels makes good singing and good songs - a far stretch from the "free as birdsong" approach that many people apply to folksong.
In the past, we were lucky enough to meet up with someone who was part of the last knockings of the broadside industry in Ireland ("the ballads, as they are known here) and was more than happy to describe the process of putting them into print and selling them around the fairs and markets in rural Kerry.
All this is a big subject and, in order to make any sense of it, we need a fairly specific definition to work to - not the case if we had stuck to being singers, as originally intended a couple of lifetimes ago.
Pat and I both came into this via the Folk Clubs, sadly, the last place I would direct anybody with a genuine interest in folk song nowadays is a folk club - too many personal agendas and far too many axes to grind - sadly.
Jim Carroll