Again, I think there is more here than either side is admitting.
I understand that Comhaltas has done things in the past to make people on this forum angry, but the fact is we just don't have the evidence to know what is going on in this case. Both sides have put out highly partisan documents outlining their own side and ignoring the other's side.

For example: "Independent offers of mediation were made?" By whom? Why should either side accept them, if they are not likely to favor that side? If one side accepts them and the other does not, it MIGHT mean that the side that doesn't accept is being unreasonable, or it might mean that the "independent" mediators weren't as independent as they claimed, and one side smelled a rat. How are we on this list supposed to know which was the case?

Comhaltas's answer to that, by the way, is: "The matter under review was an internal issue for Comhaltas and processed within the terms and requirements of the Bunreacht. It was people in the dissolved branch who brought it into the public domain." This seems also to be true, which suggests to me that the "offer" of independent mediation could have been an ultimatum: "submit to mediation by our chosen mediators, or we will go to the press and make Comhaltas look bad." If that was the case, Comhaltas did the only thing it reasonably could do.

Finally, I've made this point before, but it bears repeating: organizations like Comhaltas are not democracies. They are corporations. They do have some features of democratic governance, but those features are limited. The ardchomairle is indeed accountable to membership, but it seems that changing the ardchomairle takes time, and changing the constitution takes even longer.

The structure of the archomairle is not a secret. You can find it on the Comhaltas website, here:

http://comhaltas.ie/about/structure/

Essentially, the body is made up of the provincial council chairpeople, and two more members of each provincial council. Provincial councils are made up of county/regional board members, and county/regional boards are made up of branch committee members.

So if you feel strongly about what has happened to Clontarf, the appropriate action is to become active in your branch and vote out your branch committee members, replacing them with new ones. This will inevitably change the ardchomairle.

If you can find out which of your branch committee members, if any, is actually a member of the ardchomairle, so much the better. You can oust the responsible parties more easily that way. People here have alluded to the difficulties in finding out who is on the ardchomairle, but enough people in the organization know that it can hardly be very difficult to find out, if you are an active comhaltas member.

If you're NOT an active comhaltas member, and you feel strongly about this situation, your best bet is to become an active member. Otherwise, you'll never have any real say in what happens.