Sean
"Dancing at the Crossroads" was a phrase coined by DeValera back in the 30s - a romantic image of Ireland that he himself helped to shatter by allowing the church to outlaw the crossroads dances and drive the dancers and musicians into the newly constructed 'Ballrooms of Romance' (using the excuse of the protection of the chastity of the "maidens") It has nothing to do with Irish music today, if it ever had.
"Tommy Handley"
It's been commented on before Ralphie - problem is there's only you and me old enough to remember "that man again"!
John
Don't want to start a pissing English/Irish contest, but private collections such as ours are a minute part of the work of ITMA; it also houses (or aims to) every commercial recording of Irish (and related) traditional music ever made, and comes with a studio to interview, record and film visiting singers, musicians and researchers.
It co-operates in the issuing of new albums and published works and Nicholas Carolan, the director is now into the 14th series - (it began in 1994) - archive film of traditional music presented on national television in both English and Irish language versions.
It records many of the weekend festivals here, so it is not just an archive for past material - it is a living, working organisation which has been vital to the success of the Irish music scene here.
We went to the opening (it was opened by the President of Ireland, Mary Robinson) in 1987 with Malcom Taylor and were all gobsmacked when it only shared a couple of floors with the Irish Society of Antiquaries; they moved to new premises, an entire five storey Georgean house in the centre of Dublin.
It is one of two national archives of folk/traditional material in Dublin; the other is housed at University College Dublin and covers a wider range of material - tales, folkore, customs, etc.
Hate to hark back to the original argument, but this has not been achieved by flapping arms about and claiming "we don't know what "folk music" is any more" - if we don't, nobody is going to shell out taxpayers money for a non defined and diverse unknown entity.
There is room for all kinds of music in the set-up here, but the fact that all the work is rooted more-or-less in what is covered by that somewhat inconvenient '1954' definition means that Irish traditional music has a clear identity - and strangely enough, it is that identity that has attracted the youngsters to the music in droves, without them ever being aware of 1954, but simply by recognising it when they hear it.
Is the identity of our folk music really so complicated that we have to get involved in crassly titled arguments such as "Occupy English Folk Music" as if we're in some sort of a ******* war?
Jim Carroll