"the source singers didn't think of their repertoire as folk music."
Walter Pardon used that term specifically and every source singer we questioned Traveller and Irish rural singers, carefully set aside their tradiional song and designated them their own title
I've gone into this at some length in the past.
Jean Richie's statement again
"She said, "if you asked for the old songs you got Danny Boy and something about colleens or something sentimental about Ireland, but if you asked them did they know Barbara Allen, that's when the beautiful old folk songs came pouring out."
This is one of the great mistakes people make - nobody ever bothered to ask them their opinions in any depth, or if they did, they never made the answers public
"Just who decided Willie McBride was not a folk song, "
The only existing definition did Raggy - if you disagree, you'll have to come up with one of your own
Jim Carroll