"so we can find places where we can listen."
Then the place is not Doolin.
Clare is by far one of the richest counties in Ireland for traditional music, ranging from set sessions with regular players, where it is good manners to wait until you are invited to sit in - to 'all welcome' nihts. The problem is that many visitors cannot tell the difference and just plunge in, sometimes doing no damage, at other times egotistically ruining.
This, understandable creates a resentment and ruins it, both fr the regulars and for the visitors (many people visit here all the year round simply to listen to Clare music).
Like Bannerboy, I've seen hundreds of sessions naused up by insensitive and (often) untalented ego-trippers - bodhrans, keyboards, 12-string Kalashnikovs - we've seen them all, and we still talk about them long after they've gone home - "Remember that goat-beating gobshite......" - and no doubt we will in the future.
Unfortunately Doolin, with its proud history of wonderful music, has become the place we send the menaces - a sort of Irish Van Dieman's Land.
You will be made welcome when you come here - we were a lifetime ago (a couple of Brits looking for singers and musicians) - but if you want that welcome to be long-lasting - bring your sensitivity with you - all it takes is to remember that you are not the only one on the planet.
Jim Carroll