"Jim, it depends on where you are."
I agree entirely Peter - can remember seeing a sign in Carlingford last year advertising "traditional music session - 3 weeks time".
Even in places like Glenties in Donegal, or towns like Caherciveen in Kerry a couple of decades ago we sat in pub after pub either watching the tele or listening to Hank Williams soundalikes on the jukebox.
Development here is uneven, but what there has been so far has helped establish a national base with the archives and the fact that you can turn the television or radio on and hear well played and intelligently presented traditional music and well-made documentaries on the music and song.
I wonder if any UK dwellers would like to tell us how accessible traditional music is in Britain - I can remember having to write down broadcasting of trad music dates in my diary (if ever we got word of them in advance), they were so far apart dates - I suspect that there haven't been too many changes in the fourteen years since I left (though I would go out and get very, very drunk tonight at Friel's, in celebration if someone were to tell me I am wrong.
It's a far cry from the days when, if musicians entered entered a pub with their instrument they were told to either leave it in the box or leave.
The fact that the peer pressure no longer is a strong enough disincentive to stop youngsters learning the music - I suppose you've heard Kevin Glackin's account of having to go to music lessons with his fiddle hidden under his coat for fear of ridicule from his schoolmates.
Now a strong base has been established it is possible to develop out (providing the predatory bankers and political morons don't nause it up).
Add to this the number of cultural tourists we are now getting for the real thing.
And nothing can take away the fact that we now have three generations of players sharing sessions.
Saying which, again, I agree with you - no room for complacency.
Jim Carroll