Tom Dunne: An impromptu airplane session, Planxty, and my own trad music journey 

The trad-playing kids on the plane may have been a nightmare for some, but it reminded me of how I went from scoffing at the bawneen-jumper brigade to being seduced by Planxty and co. It's a tale worthy of Oprah 

Tom Dunne used to encourage his father in hoots of derision at the Clancy Brothers. 

To every ying, a yang; to every bon mot, a bitter word, for every Irish trad-based band taking the UK by storm – reference, this column, last week – a chorus of “yeah, good riddance, take your diddly eye shite and never come back.” The Trad Wars aren’t as dead as we thought. The extent to which those wars are alive and well was laid bare last week in Frankfurt. I had missed the actual incident, it’s hard to keep up whilst ferrying children to Irish grinds and Cuala training camps, but I soon caught up!

It involved a group of young Comhaltas Ceolteórí Éireann members from Cavan. Travelling home, and weather delayed on the runway at Frankfurt Airport they did what any group of youngsters with instruments, high on life and away from home together would do. They started to play.