>...the prevailing DADGAD style of guitar playing you hear everywhere now in Irish music tends not to be best suited to dancing as it tends to impose an incongruous rhythm on the tunes - but that's just my opinion.

Mine too. AMEN. That heavy monotonous up-down thrash-strumming (on metal strings hit hard with a plectrum) is about as rhythmically subtle as a jackhammer. Of course not all guitarists are like that. But too many are.