Jim: actually, your focus on my use of the word "charitable" was a red herring. Nothing I said had anything to do with whether the organization is an active charity. My point is that it is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the promulgation of Irish traditional music, not a government. There are many ways in which such corporations are structured. Some are more democratic, some less. Most of the ones I have worked for have been less democratic than CCE.

Comhaltas actually seems to be structured in quite a democratic way. According to Breandan, whom I have no reason to doubt, the decision to dissolve the Clontarf branch was made by a committee of elected representatives. According to Eileen O'Connor, at least one of those, who apparently agreed with the ardchomairle, was in fact a member of Clontarf branch. So the branch itself was represented on the committee that made the difficult decision to discontinue the branch. Whatever anyone says, this sounds less and less like the autocratic power-grab of a mad Labhras, and more like there was at least some culpability in the branch.

Receiving public money does require a certain degree of transparency, but it's unclear what you meant in that sentence (in fact, there's no verb in the main clause: "One thing that all 'charities' music or otherwise, who are dependent on public support, from within or without,[Need? Must Have? Should Provide?] is total transparency and full accountability of action – not the case with the Clontarf affair, I believe.")   

I suspect you're overstating this. My experience is in the US, not Ireland, but it's not even clear what "total transparency and full accountability of action" means. Generally, transparency means: can the government and citizenry find out where their money went, and verify that it was not misappropriated? If you want to write to Comhaltas, request their annual reports, etc., you're likely to find that the answer is "yes," they are meeting the standards they have to meet for transparency. But it's always possible you'd catch them out. Good luck; it's not something you can find out on the Mudcat.

As for "accountability," I don't know about Ireland, but it's not the case here in the US that a board of directors of a corporation that takes public money is accountable to anyone outside the company for internal affairs such as the constitution of committees or even the hiring and firing of employees. As long as such activities are carried out LEGALLY (ie the hirings and firings and dissolving of committees are not actually illegal under US law for reasons such as racial discrimination), there is little "accountability" to the public required.

That said, if your organization seems to be behaving erratically, the Arts Council or whichever government office is the source of your funds can certainly take that into account when deciding on the next grant cycle. If you meant accountability in this limited sense, then I agree CCE needs to be careful--but they need to explain themselves primarily to their government funding sources, who represent "the people" in the question of whether and how much to fund CCE.

Sparkles: how would it do any good to know why the constitution only allows amendments every six years? No matter what the answer was, there would still be no way to change it, except by normal constitutional procedures, i.e. within the sixth-year window. It might be that there's some sinister reason of bigwigs trying to "maintain the status quo," as others have ominously put it. Or it may be that whatever organization CCE based its first draft of the constitution on had a six-year frame, and no one has ever changed it. Or it might have been hashed out in committee (eg. some people wanted four years and others wanted eight years, and six was the compromise).

It's very plausible to me, having been on committees that have established by-laws and constitutions for such organizations, that no one actually knows or remembers why six years was chosen. Given that, it's not necessarily sinister that no one is coming forward to justify or defend that decision now. And as I said, the reason is actually pretty irrelevant--if we think it needs to be changed, we should start now regardless of the original reason.