I have a great deal of respect for Jack's internet contributions to trad music, and I specifically welcomed him when he signed on. So I'm genuinely puzzled by the sort of attack mode I'm reading.
Jack, are you sure you're not just confused? Planxty not Irish? From all over? A folk rock band? Liam O'Flynn not owing much to any sort of tradition?
Ausdag states (YT description) that he and his Australian mates are doing a cover of the famous Planxty setting. I don't quite see the relevance of his location.
Lunny, O'Flynn and Moore are all from Kilkenny, and Irvine from Dublin at the time Planxty formed. No British Isles there.
As learnthegrip says, song names are fungible, and so are the melodies/tunes and words. It's fair enough not to like one setting when you have another in your head, perhaps closer to the roots. But Planxty "dimwitted"?
And yes, I like The Corries, too, and their version.
It's maybe a bit off topic here, but there is an interesting point in this. If you listen to great traditional singers like Jeannie Robertson or Kevin Mitchell, or the great Irish pipers, the rhythms they use are subtle, sophisticated and not at all mechanical. Now, if you strum a guitar or thump a piano or bang a bodhran, you are likely to completely lose the lilting breath-rhythms of the tradition. I dare say it was happening in Burns' time,when the piano was coming in, and perhaps O'Carolan's Ireland wasn't immune to that either - maybe the split between tavern and royal court was there long before the drawing-room/bothy divide, too (damn lutenists ruining the beat!).
It's not a question of there being a right way or a wrong way, because we can never tell how the tradition is going to evolve in generations to come. I feel it would be a shame, though, if only the thumpity-thump of the Corries survived, and the harder-to-learn rhythmic delicacy was lost.
I do get a bit exasperated by people who learn a tune from outside their tradition and play it in their way, while claiming it's still from the culture they took it out of - e.g. playing Scottish tunes without the Scots snap, accenting Galician 6/8 tunes like Irish jigs (da-DEE-de-de, de-de instead of de-de-de- Dah-de-de). I have no objection at all to them enfolding the tune in their tradition (because that's how we extend the repertoire, and more by borrowing than by writing, I'd guess), but to say for example, that a 6/8 pipe march played at 120-bpm with no dotted notes is a 'Scottish' tune is to deceive the audience.
And just so you know I'm genetically 50% Irish/50% Scottish, but culturally a Scot. I have never lived in Ireland, I grew up in Africa and in Scotland, and I now live in the wonderful and culturally incredibly rich former part of Scotland that is Geordiestan (known to its current Southern English occupiers as North-East England). And I'm Chinese by marriage, too.
Lunny, O'Flynn and Moore are all from Kilkenny, and Irvine from Dublin at the time Planxty formed.
I know it also starts with a K and that's probably where you got confused, but the men are from Co. Kildare, (Prosperous, the name of the Christy Moore CD that got them together) with Irvine born in London although indeed living in Dub at the time.
Hop over to the RTE Player here for a lovely interview John Kelly with Andy Irvine and great archive footage, it's up there until the 19th.
Tell us something.: I play fiddle, concertina, flute. I live in NH. Lived in Kilshanny, Co Clare, for about 20 years. Politically on the far left. Diet on the far right (plant-based fundamentalist). Musically in the middle of the pure drop.
Had to repost this brilliant comment from Brian Holton, above:
If you listen to great traditional singers ... rhythms they use are subtle, sophisticated and not at all mechanical. Now, if you strum a guitar or thump a piano or bang a bodhran, you are likely to completely lose the lilting breath-rhythms of the tradition. I dare say it was happening in Burns' time,when the piano was coming in, and perhaps O'Carolan's Ireland wasn't immune to that either - maybe the split between tavern and royal court was there long before the drawing-room/bothy divide, too (damn lutenists ruining the beat!).
This hits the nail on the head regarding the difference between unaccompanied singing (or playing, for that matter) and any sort of backing.
Freedom is merely privilege extended, unless enjoyed by one and all. The Internationale
Stanley Robertson's way of doing it may sound extraordinarily slow, but when you heard him sing in person he could be absolutely hypnotic and you wanted the story to go on forever. On a recording, I prefer Bewick.
