The current crop of Irish singer-songwriters are enjoying an encouraging box-office. A shame, then, that most of the actual music is safe, soft and hopelessly bland, laments Jim Carroll

At times like this, hindsight would indeed come in handy. After all, who knows if the day will come when we will look back on 2004 as the year when the golden age of Irish music was truly in full swing?

The signs are all there. It was a year when scores of home-bred lads and lasses were flogging thousands of CDs, selling out venues all over the country and giving the imports a run for their money. It was a time when you couldn't turn on a radio or TV without coming across a man or a woman singing their little hearts out with eyes shut and nose scrunched up, the singer-songwriter shorthand for heartfelt emotion.

Ah, we will think 20 years from now, those were the days. Then we'll try to remember any of the songs from that year, and how those singer-songwriters reflected what was going in Ireland circa 2004. We'll try to figure out why 100,000 people went out of their own volition to buy a Paddy Casey album.

We'll try to remember just what was the difference between Declan O'Rourke and Mark Geary. We'll wonder: did these stool-rockers always hang out together in places like Whelan's, or was that a cunning spin on the part of that venue? We may even wonder if it was all just a dream.

Now, though, the facts and figures speak for themselves: there has never been a better time to be trucking around the country with an acoustic guitar on your back. While it's possible to source a few precedents for the current burst of singer-songwriter action, the public has never embraced the concept with quite so much gusto before.

Every Friday morning, the new Irish charts are published and a few more lines are added to a remarkable story. Music sales will have increased worldwide this year thanks to big-ticket releases from U2 and Eminem, but Irish singer-songwriters are doing their best to add to that bottom line. An act like Declan O'Rourke seems to spring from nowhere to sell 7,000 albums in a few weeks, while Paddy Casey is probably running out of walls in his gaff on which to hang those gold and platinum discs.

Yet it's wrong to think that O'Rourke, Casey and their peers are overnight successes. Irish bands that emerged in the mid-1990s may no longer be with us, but the same cannot be said about singer-songwriters, who have shown remarkable perseverance.

Mundy, for example, signed to Sony in 1995 and, nearly 10 years on, he's still in the game and probably more successful now than he's ever been.

Meanwhile, The Frames, whose lead singer, Glen Hansard, is something of a figurehead for this particular scene, have survived two major label spells and 15 eventful years. There are few in the singing-songwriting cabal who have just blown into town for the very first time.

Why singer-songwriters are in the ascendant right now has a lot to do with gigonomics. Economies of scale mean it is far cheaper to send an unknown fellow and his guitar around the country than it is to put a new band and their instruments in a van for the same road trip.

There's a huge public appetite for new music, but it's only the singer-songwriters who seem able to capitalise on it.

There's now a well-established live circuit with pitstops for tomorrow's chart-toppers in Cork (The Lobby), Limerick (Dolan's), Galway (Róisín Dubh) and Dundalk (Spirit Store). When an act has played that circuit once or twice, it's usually easy to spot who's ready for the next level.

Crucially, Irish radio has changed at the right time for this scene. Of course, certain radio people have been tireless in supporting new Irish music for many years, particularly 2FM producer Ian Wilson, who has provided invaluable radio sessions for hundreds of new bands. But even seasoned observers are taken aback at how the singer-songwriter revolution has been broadcast. While many in the print media remain cautious and sceptical about this scene, radio has rushed right in.

Today FM, in particular, have been to the fore in championing this new school, with Ian Dempsey and Ray D'Arcy giving these acts the kind of access to daytime airplay which was never accorded acts at the same level in years gone by. Radio play means more sales and bigger gigs, which leads to a higher profile and joy and happiness all round.

With the exception of Damien Dempsey, however, what's being produced is soft music for soft times. Musically and lyrically conservative and unambitious, the vast majority stick to a watered-down Bob Dylan busking template with songs of the "boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, girl leaves boy, boy mopes and writes song about it" variety. Nothing beyond such personal concerns seems to make these writers reach for their pens.

The Dempsey story makes an interesting tangent. His Seize the Day album from 2003 was a huge-seller but, unlike the work of his peers, Dempsey's songs are politically charged (albeit often naïve) social commentaries about those parts of Ireland scarred by the boom.

In addition, because Dempsey sings in a strong Dublin accent, some strangely claimed that his work had little chance of travelling beyond here. Yet he has spent the last 12 months concentrating on releases and tours in other markets, most recently supporting Morrissey on a lengthy US tour.

In fact, it will be interesting to see how other singer-songwriters fare when they depart for foreign shores. Too often in the past, Irish acts have gone abroad only to come home as fast as they could at the first signs of criticism, cynicism and half-empty venues. Many of the current scene already had a punt abroad (including Paddy Casey and Mundy), but found easier pickings in Ireland. It remains to be seen if any will go on to emulate Damien Rice, the only member of this new school to have gone abroad and actually sold a sizeable quantity of records.

But one thing which is unlikely to change is the uninspiring nature of the music itself. In sharp contrast to other singer-songwriting scenes, there's nothing exciting, innovative or new about the music produced by Irish acts in 2004. Compared to the work of Sufjan Stevens, Devendra Banhart or Joanna Newsom, to name just three who cut a creative dash in the last 12 months by pushing the singer-songwriter template in many different ways, Irish output has been staid, dull and bland.

But maybe it's a case that we really do get the music we deserve. After all, anyone who dares to do anything different or challenging is unlikely to receive blanket radio airplay or fill venues night after night.

Having taken a safe, middle-of-the-road route, the singer-songwriters have reached their destination and are reaping their rewards. The next part of their trip, though, may not be so easy.