The road to Clifden is like a pathway to another planet. One minute you're driving through an attractive, west-of-Ireland landscape, rhododendrons and gorse tumbling out of the hedges in a riot of early-summer purple and yellow: the next you're encircled by a spectacular ring of mountains dotted with lakes and bathed in the extraordinary blue-grey light of Connemara. Suddenly a mist is flung over the top of a mountain and rolls, before your disbelieving eyes, down the side and towards your car. Who threw that? A petulant deity? A vengeful Valkyrie? There could be anything in those mountains, for Clifden is at the centre of one of the most magical areas on earth. Even magical places, however, need music. Or so the Arts Council decided when it set up Music Network in 1986 "to develop music in Ireland on a nationwide basis". In a policy document drawn up in 1994, the organisation identified "the geographical situation of the individual or community" as one of the biggest obstacles blocking easy access to music in rural Ireland, and set out to address the issue by means of an extensive programme of tours, bringing a range of classical, traditional and jazz musicians to venues from Tralee to Magherafelt. Which is how husband-and-wife team Anthony Goldstone and Caroline Clemmow come to be driving around Ireland on a 12centre tour, bringing their astonishing piano-duet rendition of Rimsky-Korsakov's mammoth Scheherazade, arranged for four hands by the composer himself, to places as far-flung as Ballymoney, Drogheda, Castlebar - and Clifden. "Most classical tours have 12 gigs," explains Joan Dempsey of Music Network, "while traditional and jazz would have 10. There's a younger audience for jazz than for trad, which is surprising, and there's very little crossover between the various kinds of music except where the local loyalty is to a venue rather than a particular type of music."

Music Network hires the musicians, co-ordinates the tour and promotes the concerts at national level - after that it's up to the local promoter to put bums on seats and make ends meet. Funding, as always in Ireland, is in short supply. The bulk of Music Network's funding comes from the Arts Council, with precious additional sponsorship from ESB. "Obviously we benefit from economies of scale in hiring musicians for tours - we can do a better deal by buying in bulk, as it were," says Catherine Cleary, Music Network's tour administrator. "Our subsidies to the various promoters vary between 0 and 60 per cent - a small voluntary organisation gets a higher level of percentage subsidy than an arts centre which would already be in receipt of arts council funding in its own right. We don't know what everybody's funding situation is, but what we do know is that the smaller voluntary groups don't have any money." Ticket prices are decided by the individual promoters and are generally set at £5 and £3, though they can sometimes go as high as £7 and £5. As for the tour itself, the musicians usually travel independently. "Unless they have no English at all," says Joan Dempsey, "or if it's a solo pianist or something. It's a lot to take on by yourself, getting from venue to venue while driving on the wrong side of the road!" At the other end of the scale were the Danish Brass Ensemble - 12 young Danes in a bus. "They had a great time. Wherever they went, there was a ready-made party."

A Goldstone and Caroline Clemmow have two days to get from Armagh to the Church of Ireland church, Christchurch, in Clifden. They have arrived in plenty of time - unlike the audience, which, half an hour before the concert's scheduled starting time of 8.30 p.m., is nowhere to be seen. Clemmow has had a few anxious moments peeping out from behind a curtain - "oh, good, here come another two" - but Brendan Scannell of Clifden Community Arts Group is unfazed. "They're quite early tonight, actually. Normally you'd have nobody by 8.30, and then there's a rush at the last minute. Connemara is famous for that."

In the end, there is a respectable gathering of some 40 people including, seated happily in the front row, the local Catholic priest, Father Kinnane. He hopes that the bigger church up the road will soon be available as a venue for larger arts events because, in truth, 40 people pretty much fills up the Clifden Church of Ireland, an attractive, intimate space with a wonderful, warm acoustic and, drifting in from the trees outside, a hint of birdsong during the music's quieter moments. This is one of Music Network's plum locations and a far cry from the legendary concert in a venue which must, alas, remain nameless but which was attended by six people and a dog. "The dog began to whine and had to be pushed out," remembers Joan Dempsey, whose most memorable touring moment so far remains the occasion when mezzo-soprano Lynda Lee and pianist Patrick Zuk embarked on a performance of Schubert's Shepherd's Lament, only to be joined by a sheep bleating energetically from just outside the door. There are no sheep at the door of the Church of Ireland in Clifden, though there are plenty of energetic midges. The audience is enthusiastic too; when the Goldstones bring Scheherazade to its dramatic, dreamy end, there is that significant pause between the last note and the first scattering of applause that tells you people have been completely immersed in the music. "That was fantastic," one bright-eyed punter exclaims as everyone troops reluctantly out into the misty evening. Promoter Brendan Flynn is delighted. "We've had some wild concerts here," he says. "That young Italian chap who played Pictures At An Exhibition in the darkness of winter, with the wind howling around and the rain lashing down." (Davide Franceschetti, this turns out to have been.) "And Charles Lynch - those pianists tonight reminded me of Charles Lynch, who was so fond of telling stories about each piece of music that he played. Did you hear the way they introduced the RimskyKorsakov? You could nearly leave without hearing the piece, there was so much meat in that introduction." A conversation with Brendan Flynn is a marvellous magpie flight across times and places, swooping on references to musicians and writers, holding artistic memories up to the light, where they glint and twinkle irresistibly: a Beethoven symphony, a production of Lorca's Yerma in London from years ago, Michael Darcy playing the Four Seasons with the RTE Concert Orchestra at last year's Clifden Arts Week. "It was hard to believe it was happening. There's a great sense of excitement, that musicians of worldclass calibre can come to Clifden," he says. "They come, they bring the music with them and they leave the creativity behind them, to carry you through the dark days." Together with the local committee Brendan Flynn is responsible for the nitty-gritty of organising concerts, "dotting the i's", as he calls it; putting up posters, running competitions on local radio, looking after the artists, spreading the word. The Clifden Arts Society supplies the backbone of the audience, with its members taking out a subscription for the year's series of concerts, but it's still important to adhere to the Music Network maxim of "if you enjoyed this concert, go out and tell somebody else". What was his favourite concert, ever? "Sweet Honey on the Rock when they came to Galway," he says. "They could stop wars."

If it's Monday, it must be Castlebar. On this particular tour, it's not just the musicians who are driving from one town to the next: the gleaming mahogany Bosendorfer grand piano on which they have been performing at many of the venues has also clocked up quite a bit of mileage, packed snugly into the back of Ciaran Byrne's jeep. Pianos tend to move at night; and here's another thing you never think of when you think of bringing classical music to the furthest corners of the land. "I'll tell you," declares Byrne a trifle grimly, "I'm compiling A Piano Tuner's Guide To Eating Out In Ireland. With particular reference to reliable late-night coffee stops." A Spiddal-based vegetarian who grew up in New Zealand and who describes himself as "a tuner from the wrong side of the tracks", an Byrne is devoted to his Bosendorfer, a restored instrument which dates from 1925, and delighted by the pragmatism of the Goldstones who, unlike many pianists, just show up every evening and play. Compliments to the tuner? "Well, the piano is sounding good, I think - though it's impossible to get a real-life piano to sound like the perfect piano which you carry in your head," he says. In Castlebar some 60 people have come to the Linenhall Arts Centre for the concert, which is about 20 fewer than promoter Marie O'Farrell would have liked, but not bad considering the combination of fine weather and a big traditional gig at the venue the previous week, she says. Since she first began putting on concerts in the concourse of the local school in 1986 she has been one of Music Network's most successful local partners, and the fact that the Linenhall - the site of General Humbert's victory ball - has established itself as one of Ireland's chirpiest arts centres has helped considerably. "We get the biggest crowds for the biggest names," she says. "Piano concerts are always pretty popular, singers not so much; jazz is always difficult to sell. We like to think we have an informal front-of-house attitude, which appeals to people; we try to make sure there are no psychological difficulties which would discourage people from coming to concerts." As for geographical difficulties, she says there are some audience members who travel in regularly from Achill, "even during the winter on bad nights". The Goldstones' concert would have to be termed a success; lots of people bought CDs on the way out, and one woman pronounced it the best recital she had ever attended. There was a healthy queue of people who wanted to talk to the pianists, many of them obviously piano students. Ciaran Byrne was asked for his autograph. The last notes of the encore died away at 11.05 p.m.; by 11.17 the Bosendorfer had been dismantled, wrapped in cling-film, blankets and a piano-shaped lagging jacket and skateboarded out into the night. Another night in the life of Music Network.

Music Network brings the Belfast Wind Quintet to Donamon Castle, Roscommon, on Sunday, June 14th, as part of its scheme for Irish musicians - "Musicwide".

Plans for the autumn include a "Best of Irish Traditional" series in September with Mel Mercier, Niall Vallely, Niall Keegan and John Spillane, and a tour with the Joseph Haydn piano trio in October