re-drawing your terms of reference, and claiming 'traditional' for revival singers

Agreed

(1) that the "old" singers usually died out without handing their songs on to anyone else in their local communities.

(2) that this means that the songs can no longer develop within those communities.

(3) that therefore those lines of "the folk tradition" have died out.

But that's claiming a lot more for "the folk tradition" than most would agree with- that a tradition can not be transferred to another community, and that a tradition only exists within a defined economic group. The isolated peasant farming communities of the west of Ireland, small scale fishing, sailing ships and cowboys- all disappeared as economic conditions changed (in Ireland only the isolation really changed for many).

If a tradition can't transfer to a new community, the Appalachian songs collected by Sharp and Karpeles weren't traditional. Unless of course some communities have a mysterious stamp of approval.

If the traditions are bound to economic conditions their demise is inevitable, and must have happened many times in the past. So no music has ever been traditional?

And you are still ignoring the undeniable vibrant and triumphant existence of the Irish instrumental music tradition (for one)- which illustrates the point that you can't really tell the difference between "tradition" and "revival"....




... unless we're going to have a new full- hour session on how and when diddlydiddley segued from the one to the other.....