IrishMusicInfo
The Sunday Tribune Weekly Traditional Music Column by Fintan Vallely
990228
The first ever government report on Traditional music has just been published. The product of an all-party, TD and Senatorial committee under Fine Gel's Donal Carey as chair, the Report on Traditional Irish Music was compiled by Fianna F‡il Senator Labhr‡s î Murchœ, who is employed by Comhaltas Ceolt—ir’ ƒireann (CCƒ) as its director General. The document has caused serious unease among the Traditional music community, for the only group invited to make a submission to it was CCƒ. And exactly half of the Senator's report is word-for-word identical to material in CCƒ's current PR material. It arrives at its conclusions by intuiton and emotional appeal rather than consideration of statistics.While members of the all party committee acknowledge that they discussed the document before agreing to recommendations, most now seem concerned that it may have been non-ionclusive. Donal Carey in particular notes tht perhaps lack of expertise in the field of music might have dropped the normally-rigorous guard of such all-party committees, Senator î Murchœ himself feels that it would be impossible for him to complete such a task with out revflecting some o. Monica Barnes and Fianna F‡il's CCƒ is part of the Traditional music scene, but despite its bulk, it by no means has monopoly on talent, dedication or promotion, and this is precisely what the committee should have been assessing. How can such a report ignore the major funding body of Traditional music (the Arts Council)? How can it ignore a major medium like Raidi— na Gaeltachta, and overlook all scholarship in the music - the only book it quotes is published in 1910, while we were still in the UK and didn't yet have electricity. Really! What of Breathnach's and î Canainn's analyses in the 1970s? What of the scholarship at UCC and University of Limerick in the present? 2,800 of the report's 7,400 words are about CCƒ and its activities, while important bodies like UCD Folklore Dept., Na P’obair’ Uilleann, Willie Clancy Summer School, C‡irde na Cruite, the Irish Traditional Music Archive are mentioned just once by name, and only in passing. All the dance bodies, song festivals and commercial interests are ignored. And it is even a grossly deficient analysis of CCƒ itself. Have the TDs and Senators on this committee no perception of even how State money has been spent in Traditional music over three decades? Surely someone has heard about something other than CCƒ? Can the CCƒ organisation's members stand over the fact that its chief executive, spokesperson and magazine editor was given the democratically-ordained trust of a D‡il committee, but produced a partial document which as a professional he cannot excuse away as short-sightedness or amnesia. The Oireachtas Report on Irish Traditional Music is anti-democratic in spirit and fact. It is nationally and internationally-embarrassing, and should be withdrawn, shredded and re-commissioned from a competent independent authority. On Thursday next the fifth L‡ na nAmhr‡n, organised by the (unrecognised) University of Limerick IWMC, celebrates Irish and English Ulster song.
©Fintan Vallely, IrishMusicInfo.com
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