Actually the idea of Folk as old music is a form of classicalization. Think of it, old and new songs to those of us who grew up in singing families were the same thing. You have Cathal McConnel's brothers composing new songs in the same tradition as the old songs they learn and pass on... weither it is The Death of the Clown or Only Our Rivers Run Free, it is their music as much as the Holland Hankerchief, then along comes some scolastic type, who in order to take the power and danger out of the present living folk tradition makes a distinction between the history and stories of passed generations of the same folk while saying the same singer who composes is doing something else, taking our interest out of our music.
Seems right to me...
Cheers Larry