[i]Are you just thinking of the Irish tunes in that, or the English ones too? [/i]

Jack, it was a general sort of feeling, there seems to be a fair number of tunes I remember from the seventies (and even then some people thought they were getting a bit old) that seem to linger on.

The Irish tunes definitely but not exclusively. I can see your point about new uptake but on the other hand, they were lifted from recordings during the seventies so I don't see a reason why there shouldn't be a regeneration of the repertoire.

In my mind there's a lot to be said for refreshing the repertoire constantly. One pub in town here used to have a sign up saying that anyone who started the Kerry polka (=John Ryan's) would face immediate eviction. And there's no reason whatsoever to still hang on to tunes that were already played to death two decades ago, there are many tunes as good or better (and just as simple and easy to play from a beginner's perspective). And I am astounded the Bear Dance is still doing the rounds, more than forty years every aspiring folkgroup in the Netherlands and Flanders took it up.

Sticking to such a limited core repertoire can so easily create a stale atmosphere and it will certainly fuel the argument of those who nurse a perception folk music is basically a bunch of older people playing the same tunes again and again. And there's no need for that at all.