I'm no expert, just a dumb Yank, but during my one week in Ireland two years ago, I was surprised at how many amplified instruments I observed at supposedly traditional venues.

My relatives brought me to a truly authentic, locals-only, ceili where the band used a modern drum kit and electric keyboard. I suppose this underlines what was said earlier, that if one wanted to use an electric bass in Irish traditional music he should look into a dance band.

At Gus O'Connor's pub in Doolin, a supposed Mecca of traditional music, the fiddlers had pickups and one guy played an electric piano as a bass (one-fingered). The only unamplified instrument was the bodhran, and it was barely audible.

I suppose O'Connor's is too famous now to be as "authentic" as an obscure session in a small-town pub where everyone knows each other. Certainly, on the August weeknight when we visited, it was so crowded that the musicians would not have been heard without amplification. However, the tunes certainly sounded entirely traditional to my untutored ear, and were probably quite authentic in some sense even if the presentation (the amplification and, to some extent, the instrumentation) was a bit modernized.

So, it would seem to me that there must be some oppportunites for our friend to add some appropriately-modulated electric bass to sessions featuring basically-traditional Irish music. He's just got to pick his spots.