I can't see how Jim can make a meaningful distinction between the "community" that currently sings "folk" songs, and any other community that formerly did so.

Lets be clear about what we mean by the characteristics of the folk process:

- personal interpretation of a song or tune by a performer.
- a community sufficiently steeped in music of a given type to select preferred variations.
- that community includes other performers capable of incorporating or rejecting such variations for their own purposes.

It says nothing about the scale of the community in which such a process takes place, though just as a biological community ("species") has a minimum size capable of effective survival, so the various folk communities will be more or less healthy depending on the number of participants. Other groupings which do not participate (the "general public") are simply irrelevant.

To me at least, there's no identifiable difference between a relatively closed community like, say, travelling folk, and the self- selecting community represented by (British) folk clubs. And when it comes to Irish instrumental music, all the essentials of any definable folk community are present in full bloom.