Wow, so great to find you all!!
I'm 21, and I'm Australian, and while there's not stacks of us folkies, I know of an awful lot my own age (approximatley, younger and older).
there are millions of us world wide. Just in Australia, there's Trouble in the Kitchen, Kate Bourke and Ruth Hazleton, The Beanies, Dalriada, Inish, etc...

Nobody seems to have mentioned Kate Rusby either?... or are we too good for the commercially successful? Growing up I met Alistair Hulett, Andy Irvine, Tony Mcmanus, Jez Lowe, Vin Garbutt... I listened to Anne Briggs and the Child Ballads. I was recently in Edinborough to discover I'd missed Rusby and Battlefeild band's John McCusker by a few days, Guys if one small aussie sheila can do it, so can you.

While our definitions of age have been challenged in this convo, our definitions of folk seem to be stuck on trad versus the new...

I'll admit, the young talent hides- you have to know where to find it. But seriously, what self respecting folkie gets up at 7am, logs on and debates the existence of young, party going folk musicians and their whereabouts? You're not in the wrong place, you're at the wrong time! you've gone to bed when they come out to drink guinness and diddle tunes.