I have met and played a session in Sandy Bell's with Michael Gill, which may give me an advantage over most people participating in this particular thread. He was an excellent Irish fiddle player, so any opinions he held came from years of practical knowledge and being very able to "walk the walk". He certainly could never have been described as a "lamentable" player. I have no idea of his opinions of the Irish fiddle players mentioned above, and fail utterly to see their relevance to any discussion about the standard of fiddle playing recently encountered by Barbara Dickson in Edinburgh.