I'm a 52 year old woman in Scotland. My friends and I organise a Christmas and sometimes a summer party in our village hall for the other women (usually or age, or teenage daughters and some older women) in the village, we have a 80s, 90s, 00s playlist (and some more recent) dance all night and often finish with a big circle like that, loch Lomond and 500 miles are the last two of the evening. Birthday parties are the same (but men and women), and of course weddings etc - and they always end up with the big circle and those two songs. Auld lang syne too, whether it's Hogmanay or not. But ceilidhs too. Ceilidhs are a big thing here, the universities have them, weddings, and where I live in the country there are a few locally throughout the year.

There's a big musical tradition in Scotland - I moved here from England when I was 18, and am involved in several music sessions in pubs and halls - I've been at one tonight - where we all play guitars (usually, there are a few fiddles and other instruments) and songs - you take it in turns to perform and people join in if it feels right. And with those people if we have parties/ evenings at each others houses we get guitars out and sing songs. It's really the older ones who do more folk songs, even in our 50s we play and sing pop/rock - the youngsters and teens play and sing their tiktok songs, but we all get the guitar chords easily on apps so we can all join in while they sing.

But I'm in a village in Scotland, I wasn't part of all that when I was young in Edinburgh - apart from ceilidhs and weddings etc, I just went clubbing a lot! Normal clubbing. I guess I've tapped into the acoustic music scene as I got older. I do perform too though, so it won't be everyone, but there is a deep seated musical tradition here. Ireland is the same, if not more so.