Neutral?

It just sounds like enthnic cleansing to me, trying to solve a problem by eliminating any opposition. It's one thing to have a disagreement between two sides on an issue, but one of those sides is doing their best to make sure the other side doesn't exist. That is NOT FAIR whatever the points of argument are. They seem to think they can do anything they want just because they decide to do it.

That 1999 report people mentioned is interesting. Google "Oireachtas report Comhaltas 1999" and it brings up what looks like a PDF copy of the 1999 Oireachtas Report though it's in Irish.

It also brings up this --

From The Journal of Music in Ireland site dated May/June 2002

http://www.thejmi.com/article/73

(part way down the page) The creation of a 'national State council for the development and promotion of the traditional arts such as native music, song, dance, storytelling, etc.' was first proposed by Senator Labhrás Ó Murchú (Director General of Comhaltas Ceóltoirí Éireann) in the first ever Oireachtas Report on Traditional Irish Music, which he compiled for the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Heritage and the Irish Language in January 1999. In the Irish Times on 9th March 1999, the Report was described by reporter Mic Moroney as follows:

By any standards, this report is an extraordinary partisan document, which shows scant signs of research. Instead, it gives a romanticised and rather out-dated picture, which concentrates on the virtues of only one organisation: Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann.

What followed was an angry stream of correspondence in the letters page between Labhrás Ó Murchú and his supporters and various critics of the Report – Tom Munnelly, John Moulden, Terry Moylan, Nicholas Carolan, Fintan Vallely and Matt Cranitch. The letters continued to appear up until late May.

Following this debacle, the Report appeared to be shelved...


continued on the link above. And more if you google--