"I play both British and Irish music with accompaniment, and have for decades. So, you see, it is an accompanied form,"
I doubt if you are a traditional singer - we are all revival singers using somgs and playing music made in the past and passed on to us
The songs in the British and Irish folk repertoire are all taken from an older generation - there is no evidence that they accompanied their songs
What you, as a modern singer, choose to do with them is immaterial - the British and Irish song tradition is an unnacompanied one

"Sorry, Jim, but every trad song ever recorded by Steeleye Span is clearly identifiable as a folk song, and all were performed to a high standard."
Every section of that statement is debatable - the songs may have been taken from the folk but I very much doubt if the folk they were taken from would recognise them as their songs - the way Steeleye sing them makes them difficult to follow as stories (which is what they are)
As for their standard - I detest what Steeleye did to folk songs - how good they are is a matter of opinion - sorry
No - it isn't "academic scholarship" - I spent thirty yyears interviewing the older generation of singers and they were totally bemused at what some modern groups did with their songs
I'm not an "academic" - I'm a retired electrician who served an apprenticeship on the Liverpool Docks ans spent his life climbing into people's lofts and crawling under their floorboards to fix their electrical problems - I now live on a State Pension
All I do is give the songs and music that interest me a little thought - that's all it takes, and folk music is worth that much effort - surely
Jim Carroll