G'day Kelida,

This doesn't relate specifically to "celtic" music (and especially not to Irish music post 1920s ethnic cleansing), we (Backblock Musicians) have had some lovely work with a C clarinet in Australian traditional music. The early settlers often brought personally owned instruments from there past in English / Irish / Scottish / Welsh / German / &c towns and villages when they migrated.

The level of playing in many small towns and villages was far higher than we children of the TV set can credit and people often saved long to buy good instruments. I have seen photographs of small music groups in the Australian outback of the last century with mixtures like:

clarinet, fiddle and Anglo concertina,
2 autoharps, an Anglo concertina and a fiddle,
portable harmonium, button accordion and flute

and what I have never seen in the old photographic record is a guitar! They were too quiet, too delicate, too fragile ... and too prone to disintegrate in the long dry heat of the inland. Only modern adhesives (and judicious use of plywoods) have made the guitar a popular instrument in country districts - yet EVERY folk group has at least one guitar. Why ... because they WORK!

If you make clarinet work ... it works. It has been around for centuries - less changed than the current forms of many instruments happily accepted in folk groups. "Folk keys" will probably be the greatest problem - I don't image that 'D', 'G' - and especially 'A' - are enjoyable on a 'Bb' clarinet. A 'C' clarinet is a lot better off with these keys, but that may be another instrument.

Regards,

Bob Bolton