If you are playing for the general public, it doesn't matter. If you are playing for Irish-Americans, it is very tempting for some musicians to sneer at our musical taste, to the extent it is almost impossible to find the St. Patrick's Day collection of songs the Irish-Americans sang on that day...Irish Eyes, Molly Malone, Rose of Tralee, MacNamara's Band, Mother Machree etc. But those are the songs people grew up singing and those that remember them want to sing them. I'm not addressing this at you because you are obviously very respectful of the holiday, but so many musicians have this attitutde of "that's not what they sing in ireland." So what. It is what we sing here in America. Or used to. It's really really wrong to impose your own rules on someone else's cultural traditions. I wouldn't go into a Samoan-American community and say "that's not what they sang in Samoa." I wouldn't tell the Italians what to do on Columbus Day. I don't know why people feel entitled to do it to the Irish. Oh well.

mg