"This is not a judgement though, it's an observation"
It appears to be an extremely restricted observation
At least half of the clubs I frequented were predominantly, if not overwhelmingly working class based.
None were the rose-tinted 'son's of the soil' purveyors you describe (imagine from your middle-class armchair?).
The repertoire itself defies your description if you examine it in its entirety.
The Irish scene on which you pour your contempt, as is the Scots scene, from what I have gathered
Mus#ch of the invaluable work done in Scotland has been drawn from those good-old middle-class institutions, the bothies, and they and those of us in Ireland have taken our lead from the repertoires of the middle class nobility of the roads, the Travellers.
If it hadn't been for the latter, you wouldn't have a centuries old ballad repertoire you now appear to be prepared to pour down the gutter.
A direct link between Scots folk music enthusiasts and Travellers in the form of the Elphinstone Institute has long been in existence, and the School of Scottish Studies publications, Tocher and Scottish Studies has benefited and been enriched by the material given by the 'despised' Tinkers.
Such is the veracity of your "pastoral dreaming"
Maybe we should all buy folkie greenhouses as second homes - then we could enlighten ourselves with regular visits to the land of armchairs and curling pipe smoke.
You really do need to get out more.
Jim Carroll