"The kind of gathering Jim describes Kevin Burke presiding over isn't a musical event"
No it isn't - it's listening to an evening of music from the best of what we've got - and it happens in every other performing and creative art I know of.
I can remember having the same experience in the UK with Bert LLloyd, MacColl, Killen, Seamus Ennis, Paddy Tunney, The Stewart Family, Lizzie Higgins, Kevin Michell, Harry Cox, Walter Pardon, Joe Heaney.... all showcased regularly in the clubs I attended or helped run - and every single one of them enjoyably memorable experiences - thankfully free from audiences who joined in to prove they did, or didn't know the tunes or the words.
How can excellece possibly be described as "hero-cultic obsession", it is no more than enjoying an evening of the best of what your music has to offer
We ran clubs in the UK and booked guests who we believed performed well - HCO?
We helped run workshops so that singers could improve their performances - HCO?
Utter crap.
"If irish musicians are so appalled by UK behaviour why not stop at home."
Ask the club and festival organisers who persist in booking them.
What all this boils down to is that if you are going to run singing or musical events and invite people to sing or play, it should be entirely up to the singers and musicians who turn up whether their songs and tunes should be turned into choral or orchestral pieces. It should not be the visitors' job to ask that this should not happen, but the other way round - if they have no objection they can say so, otherwise they have a right to be listened to in silence.
If you do otherwise your club should come with a health warning THIS CLUB DOES NOT ENCOURAGE SOLO PERFORMANCES.
This choral thing is a recent introduction; many (most) I have spoken to find it highly offensive and if it becomes the norm, people like Steve can forget their objections to someone speeding up the tunes, and the OP needn't bother working on his musical skills because his efforts are going to be swallowed up (and more likely as not, naused up) by ego tippping joiners-inners drowning his efforts out.
Noodling seems to be a good word for it - the act of noodles (dict def. - a fool, a simpleton)
Jim Carroll