With the stink over the Millennium Committee's grant of £700,000 for Frank Macnamara's big Messiah still lingering, you could be forgiven for wondering about a similar amount in the Budget going to a Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann building on Dublin's north side, under the Taoiseach's allocation.
Or, indeed, Bord Failte's £1.2 million grant last month, from ERDF funds, to Comhaltas's glittering Bru Boru Centre, built for £2 million less than a decade ago. The centre, with its showcase performance of Irish song, music and dance, is run by Una Ni Mhurchu, wife of Comhaltas Ardstiuirthoir and Fianna Fail senator Labhras O Murchu, from a landscaped gully at the foot of the Rock of Cashel, the O Murchus' home town.
Certainly, Fianna Fail would never attempt to alienate its traditional heartland in the mass movements of Comhaltas and the GAA. But in fact, other than an annual grant from the Department of Arts, Heritage, etc, of £259,000, Comhaltas remains generally outside the State funding loop.
As a Fianna Fail senator, Labhras O Murchu has the ear of Minister Sile de Valera. Indeed, in her first year in office, the Minister appointed Una Ni MhurchuO Murchu's wife, to the Arts Council. But, so far, there has been no seismic shift in the Arts Council's reluctance to fund Comhaltas activities, in Cashel or elsewhere.
Instead, after making a presentation to the Millennium Committee earlier this year, Comhaltas and Bru Boru returned to the cultural-tourism approach. And last month, Bord Failte's Independent Management Board for Product Development - politically appointed by the Minister for Sport and Tourism Jim McDaid, and by Charlie McCreevy before him - approved a handsome £1.2 million grant to an application for Bru Boru, made by Comhaltas President Padraig O Ceallaigh, for a proposed £2.5 million development in Cashel. The idea is to build two underground chambers: one for an exhibition centre and the other for a theatre - while Bru Boru has an existing 300-seater theatre above ground.
Some Dublin 4 types dropped a jaw, however, when they spotted £713,000 in the Budget Estimates for Comhaltas's longstanding Clontarf (Cluain Tarbh) Branch, to build a three-storey temple in Alfie Byrne Road, on a site donated by Dublin Corporation. From its view-tower, you might just catch a glimpse of the steeples of Comhaltas HQ across Dublin Bay, over in Monkstown.
But the truth is that, as the biggest, best-established and most active branch in the country, Cluain Tarbh has almost the status of an independent republic within Comhaltas. It remains within the greater federation - partly because that's the way it's been for the last 36 years, and partly because the bands compete and socialise at Fleadhs around the country and beyond.
For a long time, Cluain Tarbh has been working out of rented halls and schoolrooms. It now has 22 teachers teaching 230 kids of a Saturday morning in the local vocational school (adults take week-day evening classes, so as not to be made eejits of by talented seven year-olds); with 115 more involved in Saturday night rehearsals of ceili bands and grupai cheoil.
Membership doesn't reflect the scale of involvement, but there are over 110 registered families, and about 250 individual members.
And Clontarf consistently bags Comhaltas All-Ireland trophies. At this year's Enniscorthy Fleadh, 16-year-old Liam O'Connor (who already won the under-15s fiddle prize two years in a row) became the under-18 fiddle champ - while another Clontarfbranch lad, Pauric O'Neill, came second. Catriona Sears has now won the under-12 fiddle All-Ireland two years in a row - a feat unequalled since Eileen Ivers pulled it off in the late 1970s.
As Jim McAllister, chairman of the branch, says in his sandpapery Belfast voice, however: "Competitions are one thing, but I always say there's no such thing as good music and bad music, it's all music. It's basically about enjoyment and being able to get to Fleadhs and festivals like Lorient. If we can keep them playing until they're 14, it means that, when they're a bit older, they can sit into a session anywhere."
The new building project, called Clasac, goes back to 1994, when the branch set up a development committee to begin seemingly hare-brained fundraising schemes to pay for architects and consultants - from selling 12,000 raffle tickets for a souped up vintage Volkswagen to marathon ceilis in College Green. They also had musician and consultant Charlie Lennon on-side - helping them put together proposals and comprehensive business plans.
Behind the scenes they lobbied hard with politicians of every political hue, and indeed the permanent government - thanks to committee member Maurice Mullen, a flute-player and principal officer in the Department of the Marine. They applied to then Minister Michael D. Higgins's Cultural Incentives Scheme Euro-windfall, but were turned down.
More recently, they turned their attention to the Millennium Committee, where they had a friend in Paddy Duffy, Ahern's former senior adviser - before he was forced to resign due to an alleged conflict of interest. Ahern explicitly mentioned the project in a speech to the Dail while in opposition.
Earlier this year, it looked as if the Millennium Committee was entertaining the project under the Community and Development heading, but the Clontarf people backed out when they learned they would probably only receive about £250,000. They then went letter-writing to every TD, ultimately aiming at the Taoiseach, where they finally had some luck. Phase 1 of the building will cost around £1.3 million - but with a building, Clontarf can now effectively collar private sponsorship. Their initial phase will entail a 250-seat theatre, bar and shop, exhibition area, classrooms and band practice areas. It's an interesting floor plan from architects Deaton Lysaght who also designed Comhaltas's Cashel centre, Bru Boru.
Phase 2 will entail a second floor, with the viewing tower over the bay, and the total cost is estimated at £1.8 million. The Clontarf branch is looking at being on-site by next May - depending on Dublin Corporation and the Port Tunnel, which involves a realignment of the road. They are hoping to open by St Patrick's Day, 2001 - in time for the US tourists.
They're also looking at hosting an annual Dublin international music and folk dance festival, as well as possibly housing local archives of music and memorabilia.
With its huge community involvement, Clasac is very much a bottom-up development. The big £4.5 million International Folk Music Centre project in Ennis has also caused some surprise in Dublin 4, but it is a very different creature - the result of what could be described as a top-down type of cultural planning, slapbang in the middle of Minister de Valera's constituency.
Originally a business-oriented cultural-tourism initiative, it is now being steered by Clare County Council and Ennis Urban District Council, on part of a four-acre site acquired a few years ago on Francis Street, near the new County Museum.
According to the acting assistant county manager, Tom Coughlan, the architect's plans should be finalised by early January, but they will involve a flexible 500-seater auditorium, a bar, a shop and exhibition centre. Although in public ownership, the centre will be expected to be self-sustaining. In terms of the business plan, Coughlan, who also chairs the new board, is looking at a turnover in the region of £780,000 in the first year, from an expected 70,000-80,000 visitors.
The project has been in development for almost a decade, with various feasibility studies and false starts. More recently, it was expected that the International Folk Music Centre would be paid for in a three-way carve - at £1.5 million each - between: the county council and the Ennis UDC; the Department of Arts, Heritage, the Gaeltacht and the Islands; and funds from the European Regional Development Funds, dispensed by Shannon Development. However, early last summer Shannon allocated only £500,000 to the project - which seems to have come as something of a blow.
However, Minister Sile De de Valera rowed in quickly, announcing an extra £1 million from her Department to the centre last July. It raised a few eyebrows throughout the arts sector.
There is also a certain unseemly haste to the project, in that the building must be up by the end of December, 2000. If not, under EU regulations, the ERDF funds may be lost. But a board is now in place with Coughlan representing Clare County Council, and others representing Shannon, the Ennis Tourist Development Board and, naturally, the Chamber of Commerce.
Katie Verling, a Telegael marketing consultant who developed an "ethos and philosophy" for the centre over a year ago, is on the board, as are Fianna Fail Ennis UDC councillor Pat Hayes (brother of fiddler Martin, and Frank Whelan, an on-the-ground hard worker with the local Comhaltas branch, Cois na hAbhna.
But in Clare, a vast hotbed of traditional music - and the home of some of its most brilliant exponents - cultural tourism is a vexed topic. Public concern was expressed recently in the Clare Champion that little or no consultation had been held with the musical network in the county.
Musicians I spoke to know little or nothing about the International Folk Music Centre. Some pointed to initiatives like Maoin Cheoil an Chlair, the music school (for both classical and trad) in Ennis with over 400 students. Maoin Cheoil approached the Minister for funds, but was turned down. It battles on with minimal public support, apart from VEC hours for teachers, and the odd Arts Council grant for workshop series such as one for fiddle called An Fidil Beo.
As chairman and co-founder of Maoin Cheoil, Micheal O Suilleabhain surprised some people earlier this year with his support for the new centre. When O Suilleabhain was briefed on the project, he was heartened that it would be in public ownership, and saw opportunities for his graduates from the University of Limerick.
More recently, Muiris O Rochain, director of the Willie Clancy Summer School, was invited to join the board. He attended a meeting a couple of weeks ago, in a spirit of curiosity about what the whole International Folk Music Centre project entailed. He supports the idea in principle, but has voiced serious reservations about the profound vagueness of the project in musical terms.
With the ERDF construction deadline, there is considerable pressure on the architect (Des McMahon of Gilroy McMahon in Dublin). Meanwhile, for Clare people and musicians in particular, a public meeting is planned for next month. Hopefully, then, Clare people will know a lot more about this highly significant, and significantly funded, new performance centre in their midst.
