FolkieDave my point, regarding virtuosos and technically excellent musicians, is this.. I live in Ireland you live in england we have different experiences.
my experience is this Comhaltas have turned out an assembly line of technically good and stylised musicians many of whom sound like clones of each other.When Ilisten to irish music recordings, I tend to go back to the roots, I find recordings like paddy in the smoke do much more for me than the comhaltas produced musicians, the musicians may not be technically s good , but they sound like they are enjoying themselves.   
as a matter of fact I prefer other revival and traditional singers to Peter Bellamy, but that does not mean that I dont think he was a good live performer and a talented writer