murpholly,
I live in the area you are talking about,and in my experience there are two levels.
unpaid sessions /get togethers/singarounds[unamplified] these are generally better and respect is shown.
the majority of paid gigs[apart from singers clubs],where Wild rover,kilgarry mountains,and more commercial side of folk is expected,some of these attending are young and intent on getting langers,and treat the amplified music like wallpaper,
I recently did a gig like this in Skibbereen,and some drunken idiot turned the speaker round[it nearly fell on me].
that would never have happened 15 years ago
I speak [sadly] from experience.