The Willie Clancy Summer School had no need of PR tricks to transform Miltown Malbay once again into a tuneful metropolis, reports Siobhán Long

Kitchens are commandeered, snugs are hijacked, back rooms become front rooms, and everywhere there are fiddlers, pipers, dancers and singers. The 33rd Willie Clancy Summer School (more like a winter school this year, until the sun shone incandescently last Saturday) enjoyed its final weekend after a nine-day onslaught in the heart of west Co Clare. This isn't so much a summer school, though, as a musical phenomenon that thrives on flying well below the radar, with hardly a nod in the direction of publicity or public relations. Miltown Malbay at the beginning of July metamorphoses into a pulsating metropolis, where students from Kyoto to Kilfenora cross paths, share tunes and bask in the belly of traditional music, sharing a language that requires no translation.

Each year, more than 1,200 students flock to the Willie Clancy Summer School, where the learning of tunes reigns supreme. This is no melting-pot of competition. Ever since its inception in 1972, the school has ensured that its eye has remained on the prize: the passing on of the tradition from player to player, harnessing that elusive energy that makes the whole so much greater than the sum of the parts. The spotlight is unapologetically focused on education. As well as lectures, recitals and week-long courses tackling "the scope of Irish music", there were classes in pipes, fiddle, whistle, flute, concertina, accordion, traditional singing, set dancing and, this year, harmonica and banjo. There were 400 students of fiddle alone, and some 57 tutors. Tin-whistle classes attracted nearly 200 students, while the sheer volume of female pipers to be found ensconced in sessions provided a striking commentary on the changing dynamics of traditional music.

Miltown's grace is its diminutive size. With just one main street and a handful of readily navigable tributaries, sessions can be trawled with ease, so that an elusive singer or bashful piper can be located in jig time. Of course, the town's hinterland is equally rich in pickings. Spanish Point, Quilty and the famed Crosses of Annagh are hotbeds where you'll encounter fiddlers John Carty and Jesse Smith serenading a multitude in the backyard, or Ciarán Ó Maonaigh and Liam O'Connor heading up a session in the back room. Famed Sliabh Luachra accordion player Jackie Daly managed to keep his low profile while at the same time airing sublime polkas and slides from his home turf.

Programme director Muiris Ó Rocháin attributes the unparalleled success of the school to its insistence that the music and dance are all that matters.

"We don't follow any political or economic agendas here," he declares. "From the word go, what we wanted to do was focus on education. We've never gone in for huge publicity, but still students flock here every year. As long as people can play the music, and enjoy it, that's all the matters."

The school drew to a heady grand finale with a concert featuring nearly 40 gatherings of musicians, a goldmine that won't be matched anywhere else this year. Tommy Peoples played a handful of solo tunes and not even a pin could be heard to drop.

The Sydney Harbour Music Group accompanied its dancers with a "lager pole", a percussion instrument owing its provenance to the diligent collection of lager-bottle tops.

John Kelly was joined by fellow tutors for a rousing set, which included a ferocious reading of Tell Her I Am. Joined by Joe Ryan, Vincent Griffin, Michael Tubridy and Michael O'Connor, Kelly and these other stalwarts of the tradition showed that they haven't let their appetites for the music wane a whit with the passing years. Finally, Peadar Ó Riada's Cór Cúil Aodha brought the night to a close with a rousing rendition of Mo Giolla Meár.

A choking mist descended on Miltown on the final night, as if to envelop the music for posterity. Sessions wound down all over town, the final grand gatherings of set dancers packing away their dancing shoes in Spanish Point, the summer school slowly seeping towards sleep.

There are students who've crossed continents to be here, so their next stop is the next summer school, all the better to add to the repertoire - their own, and if they're lucky, someone else's too. Willie Clancy may be put to bed for this year but already both classes and beds have been booked for the 34th Summer School. There's nothing like a deadline to concentrate the mind.