like I said, Dick, analysis can be quite interesting, so thanks for that- well done re the busking & you're right, that is the real world with market forces at play- you're an entrepreneur and we sisagreed about that word before but it is NOT an insult! -pubs are certainly not the best place for folk music but as well as Bantry market, it's where the folk are, like it or not.
I'd be pretty sure it was NEVER in the pubs at all in Ireland until the postwar flood of Irish workers to London. Their tradition was based in the kitchen, but bedsit kitchens didn't allow for that, of course- read Reg Hall's classic thesis on the Irish in London! And the pattern set in England drifted back to Ireland & became the norm.

In my time in west Cork 'traditional' type pubs I found that Gershwin's 'Summertime' was probably the most popular song from anyone asked to sing- is that still true?