This issue really grinds my gears. So much so that I am applying to Joe Offer to re-admit me to the Muddie.

First of all this CCE, Cultass as many now call it, begun in the most unlikely way.

A few self-helpers in Mullingar Co Westmeath, Ireland, decided in the late 1940's that Irish folk dance music is disappearing due to recorded music, the radio and so on. They claim that local musicians are fading away and that soon there won't be any local music.

Well the truth of it is even stranger. First off, there was not less musicians than before, rather the local musicians have moved to the then common practice of secret house dances/gatherings because of the Church fatwah against young men and women rubbing up against one another in dances.

Second had these heroes been able to collect the ten bob for a bus ticket over to Co Galway, they would have found loads of great trad all over the place, dare I mention Ballinakill, the Cooley's etc etc.

But the starvation economy of Devilera's Gaelic Republic ( Utopia in my book ) is blamed on 'the English' and so the gombeens propose and organize an Irish ( patriotic ... and IMHO idiotic ) music festival, 'An Fleadh Ceol'. Notice the use of Gaelic instead of English in a community where nearly nobody has more than a couple of words in it and even less can speak the language.

So this Fleadh is a roaring success, and with that is born the monster that Cultass became.

Wind up your clock a few decades. Now here in the USA I, a person who lived through its birth and growth, some of it in Ireland, find myself steam rolled into oblivion by Cultass.

Like many a soul with Irish connections, I am madly a folkie, all my life, and I do not dodge the chance to pick up Irtrad when ever the opportunity presents. So I have some clue how to perform it on a few different instruments, principally the Tinwhistle, Fiddle and Concertina. And because my music came out of my family roots, like many of the fine Folk singers I revere, I am a carrier of a tradition.

Too being a lifelong avid collector of folk song I also play the Guitar and later the 5 String Banjo. So I think I know what I am on about with some of the standards of the Folksong era, and its associated gatherings.

So when in my US city I discover an all-comers acoustic jam which has the odd Irish tune in it, I am onto it like a hungry dog to a fried chicken leg.

This happy gathering of nice folks playing all kinds of folk instruments goes on for a few years. Well attended, packed some nights, there is Barn-dance music, singing, blues, Irrad and so on. Instruments include Guitars, American Banjos, Fiddles, occasional Tin-whistle, rarely Flute, Accordion, very rarely Concertina, and the seed of a Bodrahn crop that later blossomed to swamp the event in a cacophony bungledrumming.

But not much changes until I foolishly decide to refocus the Irtrad from Chieftain inspired nicety to the actual Irish Ceilidh Dance repertoire found in the works of Breandan Breathnach. For a short few months folks join in on simplified version of old favorites.

Then when we are keeping good time there arrive the Irish dance/local native Irish culture promoting committee, led by fellow who was losing his keep-fit Irish dancing class to our jam. Ahem...

Next thing I know there arrives a Cultass inspector to our jam, this to presumably approve our efforts performing Irtrad. And not long thereafter we are offered the opportunity to join said organization if we pay it $39 a month. And so to sweeten the deal several regulars at the jam are made Officers of Cultass.

Having claimed the high ground the 'committee' then proceed to drive off all music except their approved official version of Irtrad. They even provide to one of their newly appointed gombeens a PDF of the books of music to be adhered to.

Next, with the jam crowd now thinned out and less folks attending the main Irish born mover and dancer - he doesn't play a note of music except on his CD player - organizes a band and importing from out of town talent - he could nor find it locally - soon has a CD to offer for sale.

The jam crown now all gone, I go one last time to witness the sad empty venue with a donation bucket at the door and a pile of CDs on a table beside it.

During this sad era of the sickness and final demise of our lovely folk jam the pathetic creep who brings it about is busy on-line attacking ME for trying to hold together the tradition I had inherited, so that there is absolutely no way that the jam could be turned around.

And it isn't.

Still nobody turns up except a few Bodrahns and maybe one or two others. It is like my Canadian obeserver wrote 'crap' see below.

A natural musician I had long since found a new outlet for my hobby joining other folk jams and meeting the odd time with folks who share my background in Irtrad.

So you ask why did the Cultass 'take-over' drive people off?

Well it is oddly not so much the lack of variety as the terrible lack of skill among the Cultass players. Some of which are old guys and gals near to the pearly gates taking to the fiddle, or worse a loud accordion. Then, here is a Bodrahn team that can scarcely keep awake never mind keep a steady beat. Oh! and that too is almost suicidal; a sort of jumbled thump once in a while that feels like a car crawling with a flat tire.

A Canadian wit writes about Cultass the following, ' Cultass is not saving Irish folk music, it is smothering it in crap ' With this I heartily agree and sign off a reformed Folkie who has mastered the wise counsel of Gandalf in LOTR, ...' is it secret? is it safe?" j0_77 still a muddie despite all the things that have happened since 1995