We are not traditional singers and we have no right to use the skills or otherwise of the older singers as an excuse for bad singing.
We took the songs of Sharp's, Grainger's, Greig's and all the other pioneers singers and we owe it to the memory of those singers to make as good a job as possible of their gift to us.
Thirty odd years among such singers has convinced me that they respected and loved the songs they gave us and did their best when asked for their songs. They forever apologised for "not being able to sing well any more" or, not being able to "make as good a job of it as my father" or "my mother" or "the old man who taught me the song".
The "near enough for folk song" attitude so often displayed on threads like these is a profound insult to the people who were generous to pass on the songs to us.
Go and read what Belle Stewart had to say about the necessity of good singing, or listen to what Tom Lenihan or Walter Pardon or Mary Delaney had to say on the subject.
It is not a matter of discouraging "poor performers from singing" rather it is a case of persuading them to do justice to the songs they have taken on loan. If we don't make a good job of them they will die and we will be unable to pass them on to the next generation and will have betrayed a trust.
Jim Carroll