Wooo..... (puts on tin hat for protection from the flak).

I'm going to have to question the very basis of this question.

"Celtic", in the way it used here (for the description of musical genres, historical purity...blah, blah, Cetitic mists and all that) is such a debased word as to be virtually meaningless.

There are plenty of Celtic traces in England, most Scots are not "Celtic" (ducks quickly), Dublin was founded by the Vikings, the Celts as a linguistic group lived in a massive area of Europe including parts of Switzerland, France, Germany, and England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland.

Also, the idea of a pure English tradition is a non-starter. There is a symbiotic relationship between all of the folk traditions of our islands. Just look at all of the places that a tune like "Brighton Camp" or many closely related song variants have been collected from.

There are parts of each tradition that can be described as more typically say English (some Morris tunes for example) or Irish (Sean nos singing maybe), some tunes are unique and styles of playing related tunes differ. But it cannot be denied that the character of the folk music of either England/Scotland/Wales would be radically different if any one of them was removed.

Having said that, there is one part of the tradition that is regularly ignored by the mass media, the general public and many performers and that is the English.

Want an example? Have a look at MP3.com and laugh (or weep) at the number of songs that were collected from England or were written by English people that are routinely categorised as "Celtic" or "Irish". Start by searching for the song usually listed as "The Blacksmith" (ie. "A backsmith courted me", or sometimes a shoemaker).

Others will undoubtedly disagree with me and probably put me right somewhere (we can all learn), but you've probably heard many more English songs and tunes than you've realised under the guise of "Celtic".

Andrew.