Crow Sister,
I think we've all become a little battle-weary with it all on this thread.
We have been going on interminably over what most of us have taken for granted over the last (god help us) nearly fifty years.
On the basis of --- well, nothing really, we have been asked to shed all the ideas and experieces; all the information we (not me alone) have set out to collect, archive and pass on so that people could make up their own minds. In the course of this argument the two people who have set themselves against the rest of us have ignored evidence raised against their - I was going to say arguments, but really, all they have done is made unsubstantiated statements, declarations - everything they have constantly accused the rest of us of making ...... and not only refused to back them up, but have demanded that we don't ask for evidence or qualification of their claims. The most recent demand is that we ignore one of the most fundamental facts about folk song - that it is almost universally anonymous.
On this basis they have kept three threads going - I quite honestly thought that it was a wind-up; surely nobody can be that arrogant. It appears that they are serious, so I treated their declarations seriously.
As far as Sean's singing is concerned; my experience of this is what he has made available on U-tube - sorry; it is as far away from good folk singing as I believe it possible to get. I presume he chose to make it accessible for public scrutiny; if so, I feel free to comment on it - if he can't stand the heat......
My views are my views - I put them across to the best of my ability.
Pat and I lecture regularly, at singing week-ends and at colleges - the last we gave was at University College, Dublin. I very seldom become angry when arguing, but I very seldom meet with the mindless arrogant idiocy I have encountered here - nothing to do with my being contradicted; more like being taken for a moron by morons.
Perhaps I can leave you with a quote from two posting up which, for me, sums up the level of debate from our two friends! "folkies are a bunch of complete C-words after all"   
Jim Carroll