I think you were simply too late, Suibhne

The chap with cigar box fiddles was in his nineties when I spoke to him in 1994. He'd been a singer all his life and took a keen interest in all aspects of his musical culture as well as his mining heritage and lore which he was very keen on sharing with me. This is what struck me - how he didn't know any folk songs, when he spoke of songs he learnt from his own grandfather with such pride. Other aspects of that culture - clog dancing, piping, clippy mats, crackets, pitmatic, allotments, pigs, storytelling, monologues, guising, brass bands, pigeons, whippets etc. etc. - were very much alive amongst the older community (and younger ones) in my childhood (and beyond) but not folk song which has always struck me as odd somehow.