Here is one I have pondered about for years:

As an example, lets take the "Irish Bozouki" which is very recent and was "invented" by one of Andy Irvine or Donal Lunney (I can't remember which) and was readily accepted and it fitted happily into the Irish music and is a welcome part of most sessions. In other times, new instruments have come into music, another 20th century example being the tenor banjo in Irish music but at one time, the fiddle/violin was not Irish, etc. It seems to me that in the past, new ideas were taken on (not necessarily the instrument itself) and were accepted and some of these ideas found there place possibly at the expense of something else.

What I am trying to ask here is not the pro's and cons of preserving a snapshot of the past or the merits of reviving something from a past time but whether the whole concept of "tradition" has changed. Was part of the tradition to do what we may now consider to be breaking from tradition?

Jon