The media have got it into their tiny minds that folk music isn't cool, and so most people don't even get to hear about opportunities to hear fine folk music in their town. How can they know they would like it if they never get to hear it?

All this enthusiasm for "Celtic" "Irlandaise" "Irish" finally took off when the networks allowed the River Dance troupe on TV. The music on their show is mediocre, but it was a revelation to people raised on Beatles, rap and rock. After River Dance, the journalists felt that they had been given permission to talk about Irish music. Not that they are going to go overboard...

As a septagenarian bodhran-player told me, "they are prisoners of pop."