What I had in mind when posting the first message: in many traditions (Arabic, southern Italian, Basque), the tambourine is a relatively prestigious instrument with a highly sophisticated technique. This goes back a long way, with a tambourine player depicted on a Pompeii fresco, and variants of the tambourine are used in religious/art music as far away as Iran. It gets depicted (in apparently the same playing position as the modern Basque instrument) in mediaeval art, played by angels. And there are pictures showing that it used to be a standard accompaniment to the fiddle in Scotland (though not much reported on in writing - the tambourine was then a woman's instrument often played by the fiddler's wife).

So, unlike the bodhran, it has a tradition of not being a joke. The obvious thought on seeing it in the hands of an Irish musician is that maybe it wasn't a joke there, either.

The Salvation Army didn't do the tambourine any favours. Anybody who only knew of it thanks to them would never have guessed it had a serious tradition behind it.