CCE Continues on Innovative Path

A YEAR ago Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Bertie Ahern turned some sod on the Alfie Byrne Road across from the reclaimed land in Dublin Bay and near the Port Tunnel on Dublin's North Side to signal the long-anticipated beginning of Clasac, a traditional arts center. The symbolic gesture by the leader of the Irish nation at the invitation of the Clontarf branch of Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann followed the most ambitious plan of cooperation between the Irish government and one of the country's leading cultural movements devoted to traditional Irish music.

The multi-million euro project anticipates a launch later this year, but it's more likely to be fully completed in the new year based on a visit I made to the site in September. The modern concert hall and performance space complete with a bar lounge facility will bring yet more welcome urban renewal to Ireland's capital city, while ensuring that the 56 year-old CCE maintains a leading role in fostering and encouraging traditional music and dance in the rapidly changing country.

It was the largest project of the development program devised by CCE in recent years to make use of government funding to the tune of *7 million as a partial commitment to the traditional arts as practiced by CCE, and one of more impressive sights that I observed on my recent visit to Ireland.

The development program funding extended to Comhaltas, much like the sizeable funding extended towards the traditional arts community at large through the Arts Council, has been effective thus far and certainly reflects an appreciation for the cultural contributions made to Irish society in the past, present and future by the Irish government.

With the creation of transparent applications and allocations that are pretty well decentralized throughout the country -- and even abroad -- the Irish people are recognizing the value of their native forms of entertainment even as the country evolves rapidly, and they can well afford to do so.

Comhaltas seems to be making good use of the grants at the midway point of their development program, according to a meeting that I attended last month at the CCE Culturlann in Monkstown, Co. Dublin. (In the interest of full disclosure, I am currently a delegate from North America to the executive committee of CCE).

Their website has been overhauled and made more accessible down to the branch level, offering free transmissions of its Comhaltas Live instructional and archival recordings.

The entire archive of over 16,000 recordings, much of them amassed by their retired music archivist Seamus MacMathuna, and 8,000 photos have all been digitized and will soon be accessible via their regional resource centers around Ireland and perhaps online.

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Nster.com