I dunno Jack. I quite agree with you about whistle snobbery- in my experience you don't get it in "proper" Irish sessions from people who really can play. Same with flutes- now I'd LOVE a Williams flute, but I've known people play better than I ever could on an old wreck held together with Araldite and gaffer tape. I don't know much about chiff and fips; it always seemed to me to conjure up exactly the kind of whistle sound I'm NOT trying to make.

Not sure about the connection between recorder, Elizabethan music and nationalism though. The recorder was very much a sandals-and-nut-cutlets instrument before WWII I think, and simply wouldn't have impinged on the Irish scene, where the whistle was pretty well established. It only became widespread when they introduced it to (mostly primary) schools, which in our area was sometime between my time and my younger sister's. Resistance to takeup could stem from its association with kids' music, and the low quality of the instruments available- the weak f#s particularly. But I think more from the fact that the whistle was (and is) the traditional instrument.

Have you run across this lot - the Palladian Ensemble- with some excellent recorder playing on Geminiani's arrangement of Scottish tunes- tracks 15 to 17?