"Should I be reduced to my own folks' folk music I'd be very unhappy. Northern German Folklore was nearly extinguished by that devastating "Bajuwarian beer tent volksmusik" style. What they do here nowadays is either old dances and their tunes preserved and shown in tradition societies or some "volksmusik" crap blended with some coastal elements like seagulls in the stage decoration. But our own rich song and dance culture sung is dead. So thank god for the hamburg irish pubs and the fun we're having there."

God, but that's a defeatist attitude, Rollo. There's crap music in every place. I'd guarantee you could find Irish music as bad as anything you've got in Germany.

"But our own rich song and dance culture sung is dead." So bring it back to life, and bring in some of the qualities you like in the Hamburg Irish pubs. You'll get up the nose of some of the people who've run your own traditions into the ground, but that sort of thing can be fun too.

One of the reason Irish music is so great is because people have brought back stuff from abroad and fitted it in. Like bouzoukis. If everyone over there is just playing Irish music, that kind of possibility would be closed off.

As forvtghecPlastiuc Paddy thing - from what I've seen, there are two sorts of people who come back to Ireland, or come into Irish circles abroad.

There are those who respect the country and want to understand how it works, and how it's changing. And if they're into music, they learn to appreciate it, and maybe to play it. And they can be as good as any and better than most, and noone with any sense is going to refer to them as "Plastic Paddies". And it doesn't matter what kind of race or nation they are. (The biggest cheers at the Fleadh Ceoil in Clonmel the last time I went were for a Korean singing Slievenamon, and for a couple of lads from Spain busking and playing the Galician pipes.)

And there are those who breeze in, in lurid green outfits, loaded down with tourist trash, likely made in Taiwan or somewhere, and act like they're doing everyone a favour by patronising them. And the only song they know is The Wild Rover, and they talk about the IRA as if it was a football team. And that's the kind of person whoever coined the term Plastic Paddy was thinking about.