"Performing copyright songs in Folk clubs has never been subject to writs or any such legalities. "
It would become one if the clubs gained popularity and singing this ttuff became regular practice
Not the point I was making Beatles songs are the property of those who on the Beatles estate - folk songs are common property - ours
I wouldn't want a purely trad-based club, I don't know many who do - this is becoming a regular red-herring
There is an issue of accompanied songs' in Ireland, but that's about something else

Whatever the percentage of folk song is acceptable the overall output of any folk club needs to be folk or folk-based songs and never anything that is diametrically opposite to folk-style creation - people (used to) come to listen to a distinctive style and sound
In my ealy days in London you seldom heard music hall songs in the dozen or so clubs I frequented - latterly I drank far too much because of the number of "Oh no - not again" type songs that drove me and others down to the bar
If you hope to draw newbies onto the scene, they need to know that what you are giving them is what you say you are   

"Pardon himself believed that the songs his uncle taught him had come from come from" Walter knew or believed no such thing - he thought a few of them might - Walter's family were hoarders who never threw anything out but he told us he never saw a broadside
He knew Bonny Bunch of Roses' came from a pamphlet, which he still owned

have but, as we don't really know whether folk-songs appearing on broadsides were penned by the hacks or taken from rural visitors to the towns it doesn't really matter anyway - even the most insistent of 'print-origin merchants hae been forced to admit that the broadside-oral tradition relationship was a two-way street
We owe the survival of our ballads and many narrative songs to communities that were overwhelmingly illiterate - the Travellers