I suspect as we older people get older we don't realise how long ago that was!! :-)

Eliza was born in 1975 - she certainly had not started playing professionally in 1980. Likewise Damien, he entered his first YFA in 1989 or 1990.

But when you look at the younger musicians they seem to me to be mainly instrumentalists - hence the lack of young people in folk clubs, who wants to go in, play a set of three tunes (=three songs) and then leave.

So they go to sessions instead.

In me experience there is a huge revival in interest in folk music at the moment - especially amongst young people. And it is mainly a young instrumentalist revival, not a singing one.

Whether this is indeed a 3rd revival, well I suppose time will tell. When did we start calling the second revival "the second revival" and more pertinently I suppose - when did it (will it?) stop!