G'day Mick,

Being a bit closer to the Big Smoke (Sydney) than Alison, I see a few range of Irish "sessions" ... all the way from the Plastic Paddy commercial pubs with stage Irish names to fairly serious Irish sessions in the back rooms of small (and decidedly uncommercial) pubs in the inner suburbs.

I'm sure the scene is fairly similar in all the capital cities on the Eastern side of Australia (I'm not so sure about Perth, in Western Australia, where the folk scene is very English). If you are going to be in this end of the world, give me a hint as to where you will be travelling and I will sound out some friends in that area for good session spots.

I don't spend much time in such sessions myself because I am mainly interested in what happened to a wide world of music that came, willingly or no, to these shores over the last 211 years. A lot of the most trenchant critics of the Poms' colonial ways were the Irish - both rebels and economically displaced, swept into minor crime in London's streets.

The Irish formed a very Australian style of song that was different from what they knew at home because their new home was as different from the old as they could ever imagine ... and their old enemies where just as changed by a new country and situation. This heritage of song, as well as music very different from the Irish stock, informs a style and heritage that is not found by plundering Irish & Scottish tune and song books.

Regards,

Bob Bolton