Yes, Bryan Byrne once told me he thought Eb is the
key at which the wooden flute is most alive.
Nothin’ much. Physics, raising a kid, cooking, cleaning, lawn care, carnivorous plants, stuff like that. 
Oh, and beer, let’s not forget beer.
I really don’t play the non-D flutes that much. The D flutes are the cake, the others are the frosting. Not a good butter frosting, one of them store frostings.
As the one starting this discussion off, I wish to thank everyone for their insightful comments. All in all, I’m happy to have put in my order for a McGee “c” flute, can’t wait till it gets here.
One other comment, which I should have put in the original post, is that while watching June McCormack play in NYC a few years ago, I noticed that she played a fair amount of “c” flute, which was accomplished by substituting a “c” middle joint on her “d” flute.
She was playing with her husband (forget his name, Rooney, or something like that), who alternates between harp and concertina, and if I remember right, she seemed to be playing the “c” flute with the concertina. Just wondering if that’s another advantage to a “c” flute, since on records I have of Mary McCarthey and Mary MacNamara, they seems to play in lower keys a significant amount of time.
Cheers,
Jeff Zajac
Michael Rooney:)
Yes competition between the modes is always livened up
when C is downgraded to a minor.
Besides sounding great, it’s a wildly common key for music outside IrTrad to be written in.
You’ll love the McGee by the way. He makes a fantastic C.
Doc