I notice that Comhaltas was mentioned in this discussion. In my capacity as Chair of the (Vaughan Williams memorial) Library Advisory Committee, I attended the re-opening of the Irish Traditional Music Archive in Dublin last month. The Minister for the Arts in Ireland made mention in his speech about the level of funding given to Irish traditional music, and also said that in the last 2 years, he had awarded 5 mill euros to Comhaltas for its development plan .... and 165,000 euros to the Archive's capital expenditure, and a further 3mill euros to traditional arts and another half a million euros to .... you get the picture .... he wants to make the traditional arts amongst the top 3 best funded arts forms in the next 3 to 5 years.......
Do we have a political party in ther UK that would make the same commitment ....?
full report of the opening in the next issue of EDS!!!
Derek Schofield