jim carroll quote"The usual line was,   there are ten year old in Ireland who play better fiddle than Swarbrick."
There weren't then - there are now Al
THIS IS AN OVER SIMPLIFICATION , VERY FEW 10 YEAR OLD FIDDLERS CAN ACCOMP0ANY SONGS AS WELL AS DAVE SWARBRICK. YOU SEE IT DEPENDS ON THE ASPECT OF FIDDLE PLAYING THAT IS BEING DISCUSSED.
personally i have not seen 10 year old fiddlers who are better than Dave, there are some very good teenage fiddlers, but while thay may be technicaly excellent and good at,l but it is akin to comparing apples and oranges
dave swarbrick played trad music other than irish and plyed it well, but he had skills that they did not possess.
Some body once said to me you are not as good as noel hill, what a stupid remark, i may not play reels as well as noel but he cannot accompany songs as well as me, we are different we play different systems of concertina, remarks like that just show how ignorant some people are , this music is not a competition, variety is what it is about