"The people and the media have spoken. No use crying over spilt milk."
"Come out with your hands up - for you, the folk song revival is over" appears to be what you are trying to say Steve.
Who gives a toss whether folk songs were made by working people or broadside hacks - they are now part of the "dim and distant past" and no longer matter - to some people.
"What you gonna do about it?"
Don't know about you - I'm going to continue to argue the case for folk song being what Topic claims it is with their magnificent series of albums "The Voice of the People"
I was going to take a year out and try to make our recordings of Walter Pardon more available, but given the tenor of the arguments here, maybe there's not enough interest to make the effort worthwhile, so we'll probably leave that for posterity to decide - as far as the today's revival is concerned, the 'tit-trousers' have had their day.
What will we do instead?
There's plenty of work to be done here in the hope of putting Irish folk song on the map.
Our collection of several hundred Clare folk songs goes on line shortly - our friend, Len Graham, was kind enough to suggest that every County in Ireland should have such a collection freely available - we can only hope.
"Spleen's quotes were songs by Christy Moore, Paul Weller, Nick Cave and a couple of others,"
Thanks for the heads-up Phil - I thought he was pointing out that what went on in folk clubs was far removed from folk song, which I thought he did quite well.
I've met Christie Moore a few times - I remember him from my Manchester days way back - his sister is now our nearest neighbour and friend.
I know the massive respect he has for traditional songs and the "diddycoys" who helped preserve it.
By the way, "diddycoy" is the racist Traveller equivalent of "nig-nog" and for me, the use of such a term, alongside the persistent ageist jibes that we have been subjected to here, is sign enough that that folk song has been subject to a hostile right-wing takeover.   
We spent an extremely enjoyable day being interviewed for the MacColl programmes and reminiscing about all the wonderful nights we spent at the clubs in England before they became refuges for those who didn't make it on the pop scene - good days - bit of a cold-shower to come back to this.
One of the best parts of yesterday was to hear our producer friend, a good singer in her 'other life', rave about MacColl and his ideas, and thrill at the recordings of his and others singing way back then - she knew of MacColl only through his songs which are extremely popular over here.
Not too long ago she was the guest at a ballad weekend in Edinburgh and was knocked out by what she heard there.
Pity the 'Yes's' didn't make it in the referendum!
Jim Carroll