Trying to get it right about the history and provenance of a song seems to me a good thing in itself. It's wrongheaded to take it as some kind of assault on a tradition to point out that a particular song comes from another tradition.

In fact it can be the other way round. When for example, someone points out that a song like the Wild Rover, in the version normally sung, came to Ireland fairly recently from a version collected in Norwich, this is not in any way an attack on the Irish song traditions. It makes it easier to recognise the special qualities which the Irish traditions bring to the shared pool of songs and music.

I think most people who truly value a tradition are irritated when things get blurred like that, regardless of whether it's Irish being labelled as English, or English being labelled as Irish, or either of them being labelled as American.

Combining the different traditions and coming up with new types of music is great when it's good - but mislabelling the ingredients, that's is something else entirely. It doesn't make for good cooking.

And when people get strident about it doesn't make for good fellowship - and no it isn't pretty, regardless of whether you or they are you are Irish, Scots, English, American or Ruritanian.