" Otherwise we have to accept that many songs written since 1954 are still folk songs,- which no-one apparently will."
I954 is a red herring - it is a date when a definition was agreed on - no more.
Irish Travellers were still making songs about their experiences right into the 1970s and those songs were still being absorbed into their then living tradition, making them folk songs.
The singing traditions were still thriving in communities in the 19th century - many hundreds of songs were still being made in rural Ireland right up to the middle of the 20th century - virtually all anonymous and all reflecting the lives of the communities in which they were made - unfortunately, many of these were neglected as they never moved out of the communities, and often did not fit into the recognised repertoire - The parody on The Buckingham Palace meeting in 1915 (on the "what is a parody" thread) is typical of the genre.
As many singer-songwriters as there are claiming that the songs they write today are folk, there are precious few who would be prepared to agree that their songs no longer belong to them and are now the property of 'the folk', giving the composers no rights over their performance - odd that!!
Jim Carroll