GUEST,Peter Laban - title of the thread is what? good aspects of UK folk clubs. That being so, it is irrelevant what happens, or used to happen, in Ireland.

Looking back folk clubs in the UK had many good aspects and many poor aspects. My personal experience over the years, early 60s to present, has been that there has been a steady decline, as many just simply lost their way trying to get people through the door by trying to please too many people who basically were not in the least bit interested in folk music, all they wanted was a chance to play aged pop songs, or anything but folk. If I want to listen to Buddy Holly songs I'll listen to Buddy Holly singing them, not someone making a ham fisted attempt at it.

The current pandemic, taking particular note of who it affects most, means that until a vaccine is found and proven then "fings aint goin'to be what they used to be" and if you look at SARS then that could be a very, very long time [SARS - no vaccine after 19 years]. I would love to see what, in the light of our rather uncertain knowledge of Covid-19, what any risk assessment would be regarding house concerts, which seemed to be the direction things were headed as the way for professional musicians to make money as attendance at folk clubs was falling off and fewer and fewer clubs were booking guest artists.