First note in my FB feed this morning...

Get yourself down to the refugee kitchen fundraiser at meadows pavilion where ill be playing bayan akkordeon in edinburgh's newest balkan band skotchka republik at 3. We will be playing in reduced lineup minus drums and tuba etc. THEN and OR come down to noble's on constitution street for the gypsy jazz night where im playing guitar. We kick off at 8 30 or thereabouts.

Dunno that I'd call gypsy jazz "folk" but the Balkan stuff certainly is. And it's at a venue I've been to a lot more often than any folk club in the last few years; it often features music (78s on a windup gramophone, djembe groups, Arabic oud playing, tarantella, Swedish fiddle... could equally well be English melodeon if somebody could be bothered turning up to do it).

Seems bizarre to hear somebody from a country that never had folk clubs in the first place whining about how they aren't what they should be in the UK. Seems Ireland doesn't need them. I don't think the UK ever did either, and it doesn't need them now.