Getting back to topic… 
I’d consider Harry McGowan, Colm O’Donnell and of course the late Peter Horan as typical Sligo players. You can meet Harry and Colm at the Tubbercurry week, which is warmly recommended. Also, try to get a hold of Peter Horan’s and Fred Finn’s “Music of Sligo” if you want to dig into that style.
I have wanted to suggest we start a thread where everyone could post a recording of themselves playing the same tune so we could compare individual styles,interpretation, tone etc. of the same tune. I would suggest “I’ll Tell Me Ma”. 
I am about ready to push the submit button. I’m sure I’ll regret it…I always do.
I don’t quite see why you would regret that. Sounds like a fun idea to me.
In case this helps answer your question, a common influence for both Conal and Harry’s playing would be John McKenna. A lot of flute players who are associated with “Sligo/Roscommon” or “North Connaught” style draw a lot of inspiration from his playing, either directly or through that style filtering down. Whether that is Peter Horan, Patsy Hanley, Kevin Henry, Matt Molloy, Catherine McEvoy, Roger Sherlock etc. If you haven’t heard McKenna’s recordings, particularly his duets with James Morrison, I’d really encourage you to seek them out. His playing is amazing. Very powerful, great rhythm, interesting variations.
That said, both Conal and Harry are individuals (last time I checked at least) and they have their own unique styles of playing that draw on a lot of influences, plus the fact that they are both really creative musicians. My feeling is that for all the ways that musicians who are a part of the same ‘style’ have similarities, you can always find differences. Since both of them post here from time to time, I’ll leave it up to them if they want to express a view.
Anyway, hope that helps answer a part of your question.
B
Good points already made. Conal O’Grada illustrates the ambiguities well. An experienced listener would tell his playing from Harry Bradley’s quite easily, but it is true that they have similarities that set them apart from, say, Matt Molloy (who is quite unique in any case). So what is called the “Belfast” style, of which Harry Bradley and Michael Clarkson are said to be representative, has more to do with the leading players than the place – the place is in second place, so to speak. So if you said that Conal was a player in the Belfast style, we’d know what was meant, but a) that doesn’t do justice to his own unique contribution, and b) not only is he a Corkman, but I suspect he is proud of it.
OTOH if you hear Conal O’Grada and Hammy Hamilton (who comes from the north but lives in County Cork) you can hear something in common that does, to my ears at least, fit with the pulse of Cork music. Against what I just said, I also feel that the Cork/Kerry pulse is indeed to a large extent a regional thing.
Personally I would not recommend the Obsession CDs for this purpose. I have them all, and I’d recommend them for listening, but many of the tracks lean in modern and innovative directions that are not so closely connected to the tradition. Nothing wrong with that in itself, of course, but I’m not sure that they would help with this question of regional styles.
I also would not know why HB would be categorised as Sligo, unless it’s meant to refer to the John McKenna influence. I read that “Flow” artice through several times in the past, but never found the content terribly cogent. What others have said already on this thread makes more sense to me.
unless it’s meant to refer to the John McKenna influence.
Which would arguably place him in Leitrim/Roscommon, wouldn’t it?
There’s a growing disconnect in this discussion between what are the regional styles and where someone currently lives, or, for that matter, where they are from originally. Regional styles certainly exist. But it is important, regarding individual players, to talk about who they learned from, or what/who was their biggest influences, including pipers and fiddlers of various regional styles. ITM is no longer - or rarely - learned at the local pub. Many of the players listed in posts above learned or perfected their craft in the pubs in London or elsewhere, and were not necessarily locked into the regional style of their birth, or they adapted their early styles to new musical ideas. When I lived in NYC, many of the local players, myself included, were influenced by a select few players from the Galway region; Rafferty, Coen, etc.. Few of us were from Galway; I’ve never even visited. I’m sure most of us have since added other styles to our ‘base’ style. I’m sure the same evolutions happens in Ireland, too, region to region.
I think to dismiss the concept of regional styles, by naming players who are hard to pin down to a specific style, or who don’t actually come from that region, is somewhat silly; whether it’s important to, or whether anyone really does, stay within one style these days is a different conversation altogether.
It’s all comes down to sex, lies and plumber’s tape.
Now, back to…ahhhhh… 
I really liked Gordon’s last post here because of the points he made and the way he made them.
I think that by heeding his post we can come back to the constructive driver for this topic.
I don’t feel that simply because we may not be able to irrebuttably identify significant players who are EXCLUSIVELY representative of a particular style doesn’t mean that characteristic features historically associated with a regional style name can no longer be usefully flagged by the continued use of those names.
Thanks a lot, Harry. That was very insightful and helpful. 
The only extant list of what Regional Styles are, and just who plays 'em, disappeared with a man who was shot and thrown into the sea… and I think he may have been working for somebody disingenuous anyway.
Personally I learned all my music from tapes, most of which were bought in my immediate area, in the traditional fashion.
Regards,
Harry.
Harry, I say it’s no wonder you’re huffing and puffing with that basket on your head. It must be hard to breathe under there.
Listen to what they had to say about it in the Ceird an Cheoil episode about flute, featuring Sam Murray
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5NWINjmyEs
Granted, that’s not the holy gospel, but interesting nonetheless.
MTG, That’s fresh coming from a hypnotic frog!
At least he is a fresh hopping (mad) frog!
Isn’t it funny how people get uppity when some underlying assumptions are challenged. But what would I know about my ‘Regional Style’, none of the experts ever asked me, and what would I know, right?..
I may as well be talking to the wall, or a hypnotic frog.
Regards,
H.
For anyone who is interested in more than just sounding like they know what they’re talking about on the internet, here’s a few ways of considering what ‘Regional Styles’ are in the current day:
1. Regional styles represent enduring ways of playing traditional music that stem from distinct musical regions.
The hazy theory is that the music ‘comes from the local landscape’ or some such things and so it’s different in each diverse place, and that people from that place grow up and absorb various influences to arrive at some sort of regional authenticity. A good argument against this is that, once you’ve learned to listen to Irish music of a high to very high standard you start to realise that everyone plays differently and that what makes people sound ‘similar’ is vastly outweighed by what makes them creatively different. This (thankfully) is an inherent feature of the tradition that keeps things interesting. Actually, it may be the greater part of what makes people ‘authentic’. The ‘similar’ perception, on its own, is for administrators and self appointed pundits who like to sound like they know what they’re talking about, although musicians themselves too engage in the jargon when it suits them (for various reasons); the ‘different’ perception is for musicians and people who value the actual content and workings of the artistic process. Anyone who listens to Harry McGowan, Peter Horan and Seamus Tansey, say, and hears the ‘same style’ needs to learn how to listen better, and/or think less maybe.
2. Regional styles are a latter-day fallacy connected to parochial Irish mindset.
Well, it’s widely noted that we tend to have a localised ‘parish pump’ mentality to how we see the country over here, and there’s that underlying GAA stuff with the county and the parish being the main units of personally identifying with the land. ‘County pride’ is a big thing over here, and music that fits into, or can be made to fit into, that implied psychological geography is convenient. From the point of view of a musician who can quantify the actual amount of unique, distinct material though (as outlined in point one) this can be seen to mostly be a constructed fallacy as the question of style is more a matter of personal expression and choices than some unquantifiable, regional template.
3. ‘Regional Style’ is a term of convenience denoting a commonality of certain stylistic themes, approaches and techniques within a region.
People don’t generally even think of it in these ‘provisional’ terms preferring instead a more reified set of assumptions. Personally I don’t often see enough actual nuts-and-bolts musical evidence to support even this provisional model of what ‘Regional Styles’ are.
Regards,
Harry.
And just to add another tangent to this. When my sister-in-law gave me piano lessons when I was a kid, she made a very serious moment to say that she was a student of a student of…Beethoven. So I would be too. I suspect that Beethoven tried to think of me as little as possible.
Thanks a lot, Harry. That is very helpful.
We all recognize there are several regional accents of English. We also recognize that no two people sound or talk the same way or even sound like themselves over time.
How is flute playing any different?