A chara, - As a musician of 50 years' experience and as a teacher of traditional Irish music, I have read the controversial 36-page Report on Traditional Irish Music compiled for the Oireachtas Committee on Language and Heritage by Senator Labhras O Murchu.
The report bears no relation to the state of traditional Irish music as I know it and is, rather, a one-sided approach based almost totally on the activities of Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann. While I would not deny Comhaltas the credit due since its foundation in 1951, particularly in encouraging music among the youth and more particularly in the establishment of fleadhanna cheoil, life has moved on since the 1950s and there are many other organisations and individuals effectively active in promoting traditional music at national and international levels. Some of the more notable of these are all but ignored in the report, such as the Willie Clancy Festival, The Sligo Festival, Slogadh, Cairde na Cruite and others, which receive joint mention in a four-line piece while Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann receives an entire chapter and constant mention throughout the entire report and in its final recommendations.
It also amazes me that there is no reference to modern-day technology as a means of furthering traditional music on a world-wide basis, be that the Internet, present-day radio and television, CD production, film-making or publishing. The archives of Comhaltas are highlighted twice (chapters 7 and 9) while there is only a one-line acknowledgement of the existence of the Irish Traditional Music Archive of Merrion Square - an organisation which has had an enormous influence globally in collecting, cataloguing and publishing.
Sean-nos singing receives a chapter of its own, but this demonstrates a total ignorance of the great advances of that tradition in the Gaeltachtai in recent times: instead, we are told that its only hope is through the fleadhanna cheoil where the tradition is carried on by "an-chuid daoine . . . daoine oga a bhformhor . . . daoine nar togadh sa Ghaeltacht ata i gceist" (Ch 5).
Finally, I am not part of any orchestrated group or organisation and cohort of none (Labhras O Murchu, April 19th), whereas, other than a stream of letters from the author of the report, Labhras O Murchu, support for it is virtually non-existent, be that from Comhaltas members (orchestrated or not) and, more pointedly, from members of the Oireachtas Committee which evidently passed it with flying colours. - Is mise, Feargal Mac Amhlaoibh,
Dun Chaoin, Tra Li, Co Chiarrai.