south dublin, i really don't know what you are talking about. you say that you are not a member of comhaltas, so that leads me to believe that you probably don't understand the processes undertaken by the organisation, you probably dont know that people involved, you said that you read the other comments but you clearly did and if you did you drifted over important pieces of information.

i think the 'comhaltas bashing' you speak of is something that is only natural to come out of the situation. even before this people have given out about comhaltas and the way they conduct their affairs. you mightn't like to hear it but it is true, and with good reason. for all the good work cce has done, this has been slowed down since the 1980s when the organisation drifted into a political sphere with labhras at the head. you may remember big mistakes by the organisation such as the review of the state of traditional irish music by Labhras for the government some years ago, which was laughed at by mostly everyone who has a proper interest in the music. notable musicians came out in protest at this report and wasshot down, however labhras as stubborn as he is stood by it despite the fact the report upon reading read like an essay written by someone in primary school.

you may also remember cce trying to sell the rights to traditional music to imro. they wanted to sell the 'trad. arr.' that appears on almost every traditional music cd. this would also lead to people not being allowed to play in public (ie. sessions) without the prior consent of comhaltas. again this was met with scorn by actual traditional musicians.

most of the propaganda that i read coming out of the cce offices like the press release below, are all about promoting the organisation and the people in it. no longer are they saying how great the music is, but they are saying how great labhras is and how great comhaltas is for keeping the music alive. the truth is, the music doesn't need comhaltas anymore unless you want the fleadhs to keep going or the dreadful us, uk and irish cce tours. cce is a multimillion euro organisation but where is this money going? so much could be done if it weren't for a few grey hairs in the ard comhairle and the other committes in cce.

but the fact of the matter is is that cce have been stubborn in allowing communication with clontarf. if you read the thread and fully understood the situation south dublin, you would know that despite repeated attempts by clontarf to have discussions, cce have constantly denied them the privilage. and the only reason why clontarf have been put in this mess regarding money is because of cce. if you read earlier passages you would know that cce had said to clontarf that they would sign for a loan of 2million or around th mark to finish the job. since that the rest of the building work had taken place but when they went back to comhaltas to retrieve the loan cce decided that they didn't want to sign for the loan anymore. there are other reasons aswell for the mess but that is one of the main ones. it is comhaltas who have created this whole mess and it is clontarf who is being made take the blame. all of the planning was done with the backing of cce in realtion to things like that so it so difficult to suddenly find 2million euros when you main backer suddenly decides that it doesn't want you involved anymore.

maybe you should read this thread again.